Arcane Dropout 3

by Edmund Hughes

  “I’ll save the illusion obstacles for last,” he said. “Since the elemental bridge thing is new, I should probably start with that. Ready, Tess?”

  He looked around. She was in the water, swimming parallel to the waves with an elegant back stroke. He smiled, surprised at how infectious her cavalier attitude could be.

  Lee walked over to the form-shifting elemental bridge and crouched in front of it. He tested it as he had before, setting his foot on the edge of the stone. Instead of transmuting into flames, this time it shifted into water, holding the form of the bridge’s arch for only an instant before splashing down into the ocean and reappearing made of the original stone.

  He tested it again, and it became a swirling mass of wind. The time after that, it became sand, which crumbled like a poorly constructed sandcastle under assault from an invisible wave.

  “You have options, at least,” said Tess. She’d come in from her swim and was now drying herself off.

  “Where did you get that towel?” asked Lee.

  “From over here.” She reached a hand behind her back and pulled a baggy t-shirt, one of his, out of nowhere, which she donned over her bikini.

  “Right…” he said. “You make a good point, though. I have options. I sincerely doubt the test would have been designed with only one solution. Even among the students with talent for elemental magic, there’s usually variation of casting strength with each separate element.”

  “True. I was bad at all of them.”

  Lee paced back and forth, tapping the bridge with a foot each time he went by as a primer for his thoughts.

  “Water,” he said, watching the bridge dissolve into crystal-clear droplets. “I could freeze it. In the instant when the water is still in the shape of the bridge, I could cast an ice spell to lock it into place.”

  “That’s clever. Except, have you ever cast an ice spell before?”

  “Nope. Harper says they’re more advanced than basic elemental spells. She also wasn’t very fond of them, so she never broached the topic back when she was our elemental instructor.”

  “Why not just use a wind spell to fling yourself across the gap?” asked Tess. “It doesn’t look like it’s that far.”

  She had a point. The gap was maybe twenty feet wide, which was potentially doable with a strong enough wind at his back. Except…

  “I haven’t cast any wind spells before, either,” said Lee. “I’m sure that it’s a workable solution, but I’d only get that one try. If I came up short and landed in the water, the test would be over.”

  “Ice it is, then,” said Tess.

  Lee cycled the bridge through the elements until he was certain that his next touch would convert the bridge into water. He took a few slow breaths, focusing on his best guess of what the casting patterns were for an ice spell. He pictured the frozen snowbanks around Primhaven, remembered the icy, whipping wind.

  When he had the sensations echoing through his mind at the requisite volume, he set his foot down on the bridge. Assuming the bent elbow elemental casting stance, he slammed a hand downward against the water and released his spell.

  The water rippled and shifted, churning like the edge of a collapsing glacier, ice mixed with liquid. Lee tried to control the process and lock the entirety of the bridge’s form into solid ice, but it was a larger task than he’d anticipated, and his spell fell short. The ice bridge only held for a few seconds before crumbling into the ocean, useless for his purposes.

  “Dammit,” he muttered. The stone reappeared, confirming his failure.

  “You were close,” said Tess. “It was a good idea.”

  “Not a workable one, though,” he said. “If I tried it again, I doubt it would go any differently. That’s one spell wasted. Five left, and I haven’t made any progress.”

  “Hey, it’s not so bad. You expected that this obstacle would take you at least two spells. At least you saw this coming. You’re very practical.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  He started over, pacing again, tapping his foot on the bridge on each pass. He couldn’t, for the life of him, work out how anyone would have been able to take advantage of the fire or sand bridges. He supposed that the sand bridge might be useful to someone with skill in geomancy, but the idea of somehow strengthening raw grains of sand into an earth bridge was even further beyond his casting skills than making the ice bridge had been.

  “I still like the idea of using the wind,” said Tess. “What if you harness the wind element bridge and try to use that to enhance your own spell?”

  “Maybe,” muttered Lee. “It just seems too obvious. That might work for someone who is strong with that element, but I don’t fit that description.”

  “You’ve only cast fire elemental spells before,” said Tess.

  “I guess I could… try to use the fire bridge to supercharge my fire blast spell and then, uh, turn the water underneath to steam?”

  He blinked, realizing something. “No, hold on. There’s a sand bridge, too. This isn’t just about each individual element, but how they fit together with each other!”

  He cycled through the various bridges until the sand bridge was queued up. Tess seemed to realize what he intended and jumped out of the trajectory of his imminent spell.

  “Okay,” he said, breathing deep. “Here goes nothing.”

  The timing was tricky. Lee cast his spell an instant before tapping his foot on the bridge, giving himself as wide of a window for his plan as possible. He pictured the spell pattern for a fire blast, roaring jet engines and flaring torches, as he hurled his hands forward.

  The fire blast was a testament to how much progress he’d made at Primhaven. It was larger than any he’d cast before, like the plume of a flamethrower on its highest and most dangerous setting. The sand bridge hissed as the flames engulfed and superheated its form, melting individual grains into a single, molten-hot mixture of glass.

  For a moment, Lee worried that it would suffer a fate similar to his ice bridge. The glass sagged slightly in the middle, as though considering whether collapsing was its preferred outcome. It cooled faster than it dripped, however, solidifying into an opaque, smoky-tinted glass arch sculpture.

  “Whoo!” shouted Lee.

  “Yay!” cried Tess. “Good job, Lee!”

  He tested the bridge. It was still hot enough to leave imprints of his shoes, but it held his weight. Lee wasn’t interested in waiting to see if it would eventually snap back to its original, enchanted state, so he hurried across, leaping the last few feet to land on the sandy island on the other side.

  The bell hung from a simple wooden post, with a wooden clacker gently swaying with the wind in its center. Lee seized the clacker and rang it as hard as he could, luxuriating in the pure, beautiful sound it released. Light swirled around him, and he felt a sensation similar to when he’d first entered the spatial vortex.

  CHAPTER 46

  Lee was transported back to the starting island, saving him from making the bridge crossing a second time. He rolled his shoulders out as he considered which route to attempt next.

  “I should probably figure out how to handle the alteration maze,” he said. “It’s the hardest out of what’s left.”

  “Very true,” said Tess. “You’ll also save a small amount of time if it turns out that there’s no way past it. You can give up earlier!”

  “Why do you sound so chipper about that prospect?”

  “I figured we could hang out on the island and swim until Mattis decided to kick you out.”

  Lee rolled his eyes. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I can figure this maze out just like I did with the bridge.”

  He stood at the start of the maze. It branched off in two directions at the very start, which was irritating. Tess could only supply him with four more spells. He doubted that would be enough to even make it to a dead end and back on alteration platforms.

  “I’m curious,” he said. “Are all of the floor tiles trapped
, or are some safe to stand on?”

  He tested it, reaching his foot as far forward as he could. Both of the large tiles nearest to the maze’s entrance immediately released and fell when his sneaker touched them. So did the two immediately beyond them. He wanted to know about the ones past those, but his legs weren’t long enough.

  Lee found a heavy rock on one end of the beach and carried it back to the maze. With a careful underhand throw, he lobbed it onto the tiles just past the first four. It landed with a loud crack. The tiles didn’t drop.

  “Perfect,” said Lee. “All I have to do is make the jump to those tiles and then I’m good. There might eventually be a section where I’ll need to use an alteration platform, but I’ll save my spells for as long as I can and hope for the best.”

  “Um.” Tess raised her hand, and Lee pretended to call on her like a teacher. “What if the rock just doesn’t trigger the mechanism? It might be attuned to detect students only.”

  “That’s… a good point,” muttered Lee.

  He found another rock and tested one of the first tiles, which he knew were trapped. They didn’t release. He tapped his foot gently, putting a similar amount of weight onto a different tile. It dropped without hesitation.

  “Well, there goes that idea,” he muttered. “If that’s the case, it’s safe to assume that every tile is similarly trapped. Why would they design such an annoying obstacle?”

  “It wouldn’t be that challenging for a normal mage,” said Tess. “Alteration platforms are simple spells. You can’t cast them into thin air reliably, but in a maze like this where they can be braced against the wall, or even against the trapped tiles, they’d work perfectly.”

  “If they’re that simple, then would each one really take up one of my allotted spells?” asked Lee. “What if I make them really small?”

  “It doesn’t work like that for me, unfortunately,” sighed Tess. “I can only slice my spells so thin.”

  Lee scowled and kicked the sand. “I don’t like this obstacle. It’s so stupid. A maze? It’s like I’m a lab animal, being tested.”

  “Is that so far from the truth?”

  Lee blinked. “No… that’s it! Of course!”

  “What?”

  “Tess, could I move an alteration platform after casting it?”

  “Not unless you have some way of physically pushing it,” said Tess. “Moving alteration barriers or platforms is an incredibly advanced skill. I was surprised Instructor Daniels was able to do it in the manner he did when working on the repairs for the—”

  “Whatever. What about making a barrier around my body?”

  “Don’t interrupt! You’re so rude, Lee!”

  “I know, I know, but can you please help me think this through? Could I make an alteration barrier in the shape of a sphere?”

  Tess crossed her arms and scrunched her face up in thought. “Theoretically, yes. Not with just one cast, though. You’d have to leave a hole for yourself to climb in through and then use another spell to close it off.”

  “In that case, I’ve got an idea.”

  He spent several minutes consulting with Tess and picturing what he wanted in his mind. She made it clear that there were limits to the size of the spherical barrier he could afford on a single spell casting, which dampened Lee’s excitement slightly.

  “This isn’t going to be as much fun as I originally thought, but I think it will still work,” he said. “As long as the barrier is between the trapped tiles and my body, I shouldn’t set any of them off.”

  “You’ll be like a hamster, rolling through the maze!” Tess let out an amused snort and shook her head.

  “If only,” he said. “I think it’s going to be… a slightly tighter fit than that.”

  He finally cast his spell creating a sphere of green alteration barrier energy only slightly bigger than the size of his body curled into the fetal position. It was already in place on top of the first of the maze’s tiles. Lee rubbed his hands together and prepared for the moment of truth.

  “If the tiles trigger after all, I’m going to look really stupid,” he said.

  “Yup.”

  He climbed into the alteration sphere, breathing a sigh of relief as he shifted his weight onto the tiles without them dropping down. It was a tight, uncomfortable fit. The sphere he’d imagined had been large enough for him to walk inside of, maneuvering with relative ease. The one he’d created would require him to physically roll his curled-up body forward in order to make any progress.

  “Good luck!” said Tess. “This is going to be fun for me to watch, if nothing else.”

  “You’re helping. Scout ahead so I know which way to go through the maze.”

  Tess sighed. “Fine.”

  He cast the second alteration spell, his fourth of the test, to close the sphere off. It was only then that he stopped to consider the relevant question of whether alteration barriers were airtight. He had a very limited amount of time within the sphere, if that happened to be the case.

  He started rolling, keeping his chin tucked and doing his best to ignore the disorienting sensation of tipping forward and completely over multiple times in rapid succession. Tess was true to her word, and she guided him down the right fork at the first intersection.

  “This way, Lee!” she said, in an amused, but earnest voice. “Right over here. Good, good, just keep at it.”

  She sounded like a preschool teacher assisting a wobbly child make their way across a classroom. Lee was too dizzy to care much about the teasing smile on her face, or even hold it in his field of view for more than an instant before it drifted out of sight. It was hard to tell how much of his churning perspective was due to his dizziness, as opposed to the actual rolling he was doing.

  He banged into the walls of the maze. He got turned around and went the wrong way at several points, with Tess kindly shouting and gesturing to get him back on the track. He felt like he was about to throw up. The interior of the sphere heated up, and he started worrying about the quality of the air he was breathing.

  In short, navigating the maze royally sucked. Tess minimized the amount of dead ends he encountered, though it was clear that she hadn’t scouted far enough ahead to save him from them completely. At one point, she jumped in front of his path, forcing Lee to lean backward to arrest his forward momentum.

  “Another wrong turn?” he asked.

  “No, ah, worse,” said Tess. “Just… take a look.”

  He did, focusing his eyes on the path ahead instead of on her. The walls on either side of the next section were missing. A bridge that lacked anything resembling guard rails connected the end of the maze to the sandy island where the bell awaited him.

  “Great,” he muttered. “Okay. I just have to roll perfectly straight, then. Simple enough.”

  “Go slow,” said Tess. “Go really, really slow. You haven’t exactly stayed on a direct course up until now.”

  She sounded worried. In truth, the only thing Lee cared about was getting out of the ball, regardless of the outcome. He tipped himself into a forward roll and onto the bridge. There was a slight, downward slope that he hadn’t noticed, which instantly locked him into his descent.

  His path was perfectly straight. He knew this because he struck the post the bell was hanging from at a decent clip, shattering the alteration sphere and giving him a sub-concussive blow to the head.

  “Ow,” he muttered.

  “Good work!” said Tess. “It was like croquet, almost. Maybe even more fun.”

  “For you, maybe.”

  Lee rose to his feet, still dizzy from the horrendous amount of rolling he’d done. He didn’t waste any time ringing the bell, and just like before, it transported him back to the starting island.

  CHAPTER 47

  Lee immediately started the conjuration obstacles, the first of which went surprisingly quickly. Tess lent her aid in assembling the puzzle pieces in lieu of him using actual telekinesis. The picture was different from the one during his pr
actice test, though it was still clearly a borderline-scandalous pinup of Shay Morrigan. She was blowing them a kiss, wearing a robe that showcased a substantial amount of cleavage, and leaning forward to emphasize the eroticism even further.

  “There,” said Tess, as she set the last piece into place. “You owe me big time.”

  “Would a kiss suffice?”

  “In your dreams. You’re buying me sweets and taking me on a beachside vacation as soon as it’s convenient.”

  “We’ll see,” said Lee.

  The puzzle slid downward, revealing a doorway behind it. Lee frowned as he made his way into the next chamber and examined the new puzzle. It was a single-lever switch atop a column, deceptive in its simplicity.

  He approached slowly, treating it with wariness as though it might suddenly turn into a snake and bite him. After a moment’s consideration, he reached his hand forward and took hold of the lever.

  The sensation was painful and forceful, reminiscent of the few times Harper had used her spell shield on him in close quarters during training. Lee was flipped upside down and thrown through the air. He landed on the floor, his hand tingling with a prickling, needle sensation, his fingers numb.

  “You probably should have expected that,” said Tess.

  Lee sighed. “It was worth a shot. I only have two spells left. I wanted to try to save them, if possible.”

  He slowly stood to his feet and assumed the conjuration casting stance, clasping his right wrist with his left hand. Pushing his palm forward, he envisioned what he wanted, casting a simple telekinesis spell to trigger the lever.

  The floor made a noise, and two more levers rose up on either side of the first. Lee stomped his foot and tried to reel in his frustration.

  “I can’t waste my last spell on this obstacle,” he said. “I have no idea if I’ll need it in the room after this one.”

  “Could you still manage to flip them, despite the enchantment?” asked Tess.

  “I guess I’ll have to try.”

  He used his sweatshirt sleeve to cover his hand. Then, thinking better of his initial idea, he took off his shoe. It took him multiple throws, but one finally connected with the leftmost lever, which still hadn’t been triggered. It slid forward easily enough, but the middle lever reset to its original position in protest.