Guilt and Punishmen

by Sophia Schmidt

  When we meet again at the academy, if you still think the things you just said, repeat your offer once more. Who knows? Maybe this time we'll become friends for real."

  Quylla let him go, realizing she has just gone from one extreme to another, from never speaking to him to almost confessing her feelings for him.

  "Gods, I'm so stupid. I never fell in love with Lith, only with the distorted image I had of him. Thank heavens he stopped me before I could make a fool of myself. I can't blame him for seeing me only as a potential friend and not a love interest.

  We are still too young and know nothing about each other. Let's start as friends."¨C

  Only when Lith reached the Ernas' private Gate he realized he couldn't operate it without Orion's royal pass.

  "Great job, smarta*s. Now I have to go back and search for help. I'll be lucky if the staff doesn't kick me out. No one here knows me or why I am here."¨C

  Then, he heard the door behind him opening up. It was Phloria, with a still tear-stained face from the little make up she wore. She was wringing her hands, trying to muster the courage to tell him how sorry she was.

  Phloria was the one that had spent more time with Lith, taking a walk together before breakfast every morning. She wasn't shy as Quylla and didn't keep her distance from him like Friya to not hurt Quylla's feelings, yet she had never bothered asking him about his burden.

  The problem was that her speech and Quylla's were awfully similar. Phloria had eavesdropped his reply already and it fitted her too quite well. Only after listening to his story, she had realized how silly was her constant whining about her mother and the duties her family required from her.

  Phloria had never understood how lucky she was, being born with a silver spoon, until that evening. It made her feel like a shallow and spoiled girl.

  "Just the girl I was about to look for." Lith smiled at her, leaving Phloria amazed at how fast he had gone back to his usual self.

  "Can you please open it for me? I want to go home."

  Phloria took her pass out of her dimensional necklace, setting the Gate's coordinates without saying a word.

  When Lith was about to walk through the Warp, Phloria grabbed his arm.

  "Are you sure you don't want to stay? The dinner will be delicious and we have plenty of rooms for our guests." It was a stupid line and she knew it, but Phloria didn't want to let him go like that, dismissed like a servant after performing his duty.

  "Thanks for your offer, but there's nothing for me here. In five minutes you all will regain your cool and then it would be all forced apologies and awkward silences. You need time to think about what to do next, and so do I."

  The Gate closed as soon as Lith passed through it, making Phloria feel cold and alone despite being in the comfort of her own house.

  ***

  House Ernas was an ancient noble house, full of hidden passages and secret doors. There was a reason that Velan Deirus had taken the apartment right next to his son.

  By simply removing a metal grid in the chimney, it was possible to hear everything that was happening in the adjacent room without the need of using spells that could alert a paranoid magician.

  Velan, Jirni and Orion had listened from start to finish, not even missing Quylla's speech.

  Orion had fiercely opposed to the intrusion on the kid's privacy, but Velan had been adamant about it.

  "I can't put my son's future in the hands of a stranger I don't know and who has so many bad rumours going on about him. Leaving Yurial alone in his time of need would mean failing him once again and I'm done doing it."

  Jirni seized the opportunity to better understand the nature of her newest opponent and his relationship with her daughters, while Orion could only sigh and accept his fate.

  "A very interesting fellow." Velan said while fiddling with his goatee.

  "People like that are damaged goods, but they can be incredible assets. I must tell my son to keep him close, if he doesn't break down along the way, this Lith may have a brilliant future ahead of him. He reminds me of my grandmother in many ways."

  At the words "damaged goods" Jirni felt personally offended, giving to Velan a soft smile that sent shivers down Orion's spine. It was the same one she wore while taking care of her torturing devices in front of her prisoners.

  Orion knew that if glares could maim, Velan's remains would easily fit into Jirni's purse. Yet she didn't rebuke their guest. Dinner time was nearing and they still needed to prepare themselves.

  Orion and Jirni took their leave and went to their private quarters before continuing the discussion.

  "What an ignorant idiot." She sneered. "If he just spent a little more time out of his lab and in the Court, he would know that half of them are 'damaged goods'. What do you think of the young Lith, dear?"

  Orion would never cease to be amazed by how no matter how violent her emotions could be, his wife would never let them get the better of her, remaining cold and collected under all circumstances.

  "He is still young. I really hope he can recover from his past traumas. It takes willpower and courage to not let such burden crush you and be able to share it with others. He can become a great friend to our girls and an asset for the Crown."

  "That's not what I was talking about." Jirni started to pick up a suit for him, since Orion was still deciding on the tie.

  "Quylla is not very attractive yet, but she has a lot of talent and seems to really care for the boy. Friya acts tough, but she wouldn't be so mad at him if she considered him just a stranger.

  "As for our little Flower, any boy that can make her blush is better than all those we have introduced to her so far. Not to mention how she ran after him after a bit of hesitation.

  When we bring him into the family, we must be certain about who to match him with. A happy marriage is all about compatibility, like it happened for us."

  "What do you mean with 'When'?"

  ***

  After arriving back to Lutia, Lith didn't go home going straight for the Trawn woods. The recent events had taken a toll on him and he felt the need to remain alone.

  "Mom thinks I'm away, so she will not worry. Besides, if anything happens, she always has the communication amulet."¨C

  Solus and Lith went down to the Forgemastering lab to experiment on the second method. Lith was still tired, but Invigoration could make up for it and with his mind in turmoil he felt the need to bury himself in his work.

  According to Gantzwell's theory, the best way to overcome Forgemastering's limits was to use a second magic circle. The normal enchanting processes required only one magic circle, to store the runes and collect the mana necessary.

  It was the Forgemaster's duty to provide the energy necessary to force both runes and mana into the item, by exerting a magical force superior to the one the magic circle stored.

  If the condition wasn't met, the enchantment would fail, that was the reason why a Forgemaster's creations could never exceed his own mana capacity. Gantzwell hypothesised that by using a second circle instead of their own mana, Forgemasters could team up and produce superior items.

  His work had raised great expectations, since using more than a single circle was already a standard procedure, although it served to better contain the magical energies rather than to make them clash.

  In the end, Gantzwell theory had been discarded because it never bore any fruit. Filling two overlapping magical circles with mana would make them unstable, the conflicting energies would damage the circles and dissipate too fast for any enchantment to succeed.

  After a few attempts, Lith and Solus discovered that neither Solus's tower using Invigoration to keep the circles powered up nor Lith using true magic to speed up the process was enough to succeed.

  "The night is still young." Solus sighed. "Do you want to get some sleep or do you prefer to pick a third method?"

  "Neither. I think I have a solution."

  Chapter 187 Silver Lining

  "The reason we are struggling so mu
ch with things like Alchemy and Forgemastering is because we got it all wrong. Since we have stepped into the academy, we have been looking at the problem from the wrong angle.

  "Fake magic and all its branches are strict, full of rules and boundaries that the mage can never overcome. Fake mages can't change the shape, size or even the temperature of a fireball, unless they rewrite the spell from scratch.

  "True magic instead, is a free flow. There is no set number of steps or limits to what you can do, as long as you have the willpower and imagination to make it happen. Our problem since the beginning is that we are trying to beat a game at its own rules instead of making our own.

  "Most of the things I have learned at the academy about tier four spells are redundant.

  I could have managed to perform everything they explained so far at the Healer, Combat Magic and Advanced magic classes on my own. I simply lacked the ingenuity to connect the dots between what I already knew about tier three and below.

  That's why as soon as I learned the trick behind regrowing a limb or share life energy, I was already able to do it better with true magic. Forgemastering though, is something I am deeply ignorant about, hence my mistake.

  Instead of focusing on runes and circles, I should have tried to understand the logic behind the mana pathways' number and positioning. I should have studied what kind of form and properties a pseudo core needs to grant the enchanted item its effects.

  Once I have achieved that, I will not need any rune or chant. I will just have to carve the pathways and then create the proper pseudo core."

  "I think you are right." Solus' wisp said.

  "I should have thought of it when I managed to create my own magic circles without using Professor Wanemyre's special ink. If we don't need the ink for the circles, there's no reason why it should be any different for the runes too. By my maker, I could I be so slow on the uptake?"

  "Don't be so harsh on yourself, Solus. You are indeed the smarter one, but it's over one year that you are suffering from depression because of your condition. Not to mention how you are always taking care of me, managing my social life and helping me with magic.

  You know, I think you are one of the kindest persons I have ever met."

  Solus' wisp spun around out of joy. Being referred to as a person instead of a thing was what made her happy the most. Lith sensed it, and found himself thinking out loud.

  "Do you know a funny thing we have in common? We have yet to find out what exactly we are. You are not an artifact, because you have a mind of your own, nor a cursed item. While I seem to have the body of a man, the morals of a beast and the soul of an Abomination."

  Solus liked the idea of their bond being beyond their symbiotic relationship, much less the gloomy turn Lith's thoughts were taking, so she hurried changing the topic.

  "What where you saying about Forgemastering? That we can skip Gantzwell's theory and work directly on pseudo cores?"

  "I wish." Lith sighed.

  "It would require a massive amount of knowledge and experience that we are sorely lacking at the moment. Until I manage to put my hands on a variety of magical items and study their properties, we are stuck using fake Forgemastering.

  Now that we know the rules of the game, though, there are some that we have to obey, some we can bend and other that we can ignore by cheating. Let me show you."

  Lith placed on the Forgemastering table one of the cheap rings he enchanted into dimensional items, while Solus used Invigoration to draw in the world energy and used it to fill with mana the ring's surrounding space.

  Then, Lith took out from the pocket dimension one of the many small hammers he had Zekell prepare for him. It had a metal head and a wooden handle, the kind one would use to knock a nail in a wall.

  "I had actually planned to enchant them into weapons for my family, but they should work just fine for my experiment too. Solus, is your control over the mana inside of the tower restricted to circles?"

  "No, it's just the way I'm more used to project it, since we always followed Forgemastering's canons."

  "Okay. I need you to imbue the hammer I'm holding with a little bit more mana than the one stored in the circle."

  Solus had no idea what Lith was planning, but did as instructed. Such amount of mana was well below her capabilities. The hammer pulsed with a blue glow, emitting a low buzzing sound.

  Lith focused on the mystical energies, making them submit to his will and take the form of the first rune before making them clash with those contained within the magic circle.

  Sparks flew all over the lab while the conflicting energies generated a cyan burst of light that almost blinded Lith. Each strike produced a new burst of light, carving another rune inside the ring that created mana pathways wider and stronger than Lith ever had.

  The brief contact allowed the mystical energies to remain stable, but took a huge toll on the tool and its wielder.

  At the third rune the hammer crumbled. The cheap materials were already under a lot of stress due to the highly compressed mana forced in their frame. Each clash was like slamming the hammer against an incoming train.

  Lith took out another, this time with a steel head and handle, that Solus once again filled to the brim without letting Lith lose his rhythm. Steel proved to be a better mana conductor, allowing him to shape the runes with less effort and lasting five hits.

  "Damn! Eight done, seven to go. Next one!"¨C Lith couldn't waste his time talking, thinking was much faster. The third one was a small decorative silver plated hammer that Lith had bought as end of term present for Professor Wanemyre.

  "F*ck me sideways! Random hates me, of all the junk I bought I had to pick the only expensive one. Just my luck."¨C The hammer wasn't that expensive, it was just Lith being that stingy.

  Yet he was in a rush, the cheap ring couldn't hold much longer, not giving him the time to switch hammer before resuming the process. Much to his surprise, not only silver was an even better mana conductor, but also somehow dispersed the excess energies reducing the bursts' blowback.

  Lith completed the ring without the need to change hammer again. When he examined the final product via Invigoration, he discovered the experiment had been a partial success.

  Despite using the enchantment requirements for middle class quality dimensional items, capable of storing about ten square meters (108 square feet) worth of space, the one they obtained with the hybrid technique using both fake and true magic was a high quality one, with an internal space of almost thirty square meters (323 square feet).

  The problem lied in the uneven mana pathways coursing around the pseudo core.

  "Dammit. Despite you used the same amount of mana for each hammer, different materials have yielded different results. The pseudo core was infused while using the silver hammer, so it's too strong for the pathways I carved with first two hammers.

  Either they will be unable to hold its energies and make it progressively lose its magical properties or the core will become unstable over time and explode. With my luck, my money is on the boom."

  "It's still a success." Solus said.

  "The silver plated hammer lasted seven hits before shattering. Maybe a silver hammer could last enough for all thirteen runes, if not for more than one item."

  "Maybe and maybe not." Lith sighed.

  "Silver is a ductile and malleable metal. It could get deformed after a single rune, becoming useless. It's worth the try, but it will cost a pretty penny."

  "Well, the good thing is that if we collect all the pieces you can have them melted into a new hammer."

  Over the next few days, before the academy's break was over, Lith performed countless experiments on several subjects. Following Solus' advice he bought a silver hammer, while following Earth's RPG customs he also bought a gold plated hammer.

  Only the materials costed him three gold coins, but in all the video games he had played gold items performed better than silver. Much to his disappointment, gold turned out to be a terrible mana
conductor, not lasting even a single hit before getting pulverized.

  After cursing the creators of Dungeons & Looting for a while, he tried out the silver hammer. It allowed him to produce the first high quality dimensional ring of his Forgemaster career.

  The impacts were more magical than physical in nature, so the hammer would get dented but not destroyed. Lith could use it several times before having it reforged.

  "We either need a sturdier silver alloy or to enchant the hammer to make it more durable. Sooner or later Zekell will ask you what are you doing to reduce it in such a poor state and you don't have a plausible excuse." Solus said.

  The more they learned about Forgemastering, the closer Lith got to open the boxes. He never received a vision to show him that the future had changed, so had never forgot about them.

  Lith and Solus tried to replicate the synchronization effect they had experienced against the Scorpicore, when she had assumed her glow form the first time, but to no avail.

  The stone glove simply acted as a stone glove, their bodies were linked but their mana cores seemed to be miles apart and happy that way.

  He never received a visit or a call from his friends and that left him quite dejected.

  ¨C"As Yurial said, too little and too late. That ship must be sailed already." Lith thought.

  "Or maybe they need some time to sort out their feelings." Solus pointed out.

  "Yurial and Friya have some serious thinking to do, while the poor Quylla is probably still recovering from being friend-zoned like that. Phloria is the only one that has no excuses at all. I thought she was better than this."¨C

  After saying goodbye to his friends and family, Lith went back to the White Griffon academy for the last trimester.

  Chapter 188 Once More, with Feeling

  Going back to the academy felt a bit odd to Lith.

  He didn't like being there, always forced to hide his true abilities while keeping the Ballot at hand.