4.20 A Timely Warning

“I’m not so sure this is a good idea…” Estrid said as she watched the vial of burning rain on the table. It looked exactly like the one he’d used to form his first investiture, with a large, burning drop that burned at the bottom of the glass for just a few seconds before it evaporated. Then it formed a tiny, golden cloud that roiled beneath the cork for a little while before precipitating back down in liquid form to pool at the bottom of the vial. The entire process only took about half a minute inside the closed system and it repeated endlessly. “It’s holding a lot of mana. That means it has to have a lot of magical potential, right? What if it’s too much? How can you tell if it’s safe?”

“He’ll be fine,” Uriah assured her, snatching up the vial and grinning down at it excitedly. “He said he was immune to hellfire. I can’t imagine a simple elemental flame could do any worse. This could be a revolutionary discovery!”

“It could also burn a hole in his throat. From the inside,” the druid retorted sourly. “You shouldn’t encourage him.” 

Bernt had discovered the two of them discussing magic over a cup of coffee at a small table outside their inn. By the sound of it, she had continued to interrogate Uriah about magecraft after Bernt had disappeared several weeks ago, and she’d learned a lot. When he sat down to join them, he found her drawing out the runes for a diagnostic circle on the table with Uriah’s guidance – she didn’t need much. 

Bernt didn’t know why she wanted that particular rune circle, but he was impressed by her ingenuity. Druids couldn’t shape spellforms. They couldn’t hold mana inside their spirits, so they couldn’t gain enough influence over it to shape it precisely. But that didn’t matter when it came to basic warding. Runes could be drawn out by hand and then simply infused with mana to activate them. 

It was slow and clunky compared to real abjuration, but it was a type of magecraft. She could use it to set traps and protect structures, to inspect spells, magical materials and enchantments, and even to crudely defend herself in a fight if she had enough time to prepare. 

Her discovery couldn’t possibly be unique – any druid who took the time to learn about how magecraft worked would make the connection eventually – but he doubted many druids took the time to learn. Bernt had studied magecraft for years, but even he only knew about three hundred runes – those in the standard curriculum, plus a few more specialized ones that he’d been taught for his pyromancy qualification and what he’d picked up during his studies with Pollock. It was more than enough for an elementalist, considering most fire spellforms only reused the same thirty or forty runes, but true warding was more nuanced and therefore required many different runes. A skilled abjurer would spend many years memorizing thousands of runes and their potential constellations to produce a wide variety of effects.

Estrid couldn’t be a mage, but she would become a much more effective spellcaster overall if she could master enough of the discipline. Still, doing so meant she wasn’t spending that time developing her normal skills as a druid. He wanted to ask her about that, but the conversation had derailed immediately when he’d set the vial down on the table. By the time he’d explained what it was for, it felt awkward to go back and ask about her druidry.

“It’s going to be fine,” Bernt said more confidently than he felt as Uriah tried to swirl the tiny bit of liquid around in the container. Sure, the hellfire hadn’t harmed him, but he’d still felt the heat. Burning rain was at least as hot – it just didn’t burn the spirit. But it was an acceptable risk. He hadn’t just bought the burning rain from the alchemy supplier, he also had two medium-grade healing potions in his pockets. 

While it might hurt, he would be fine even if he failed and somehow got burned. Not that he expected that to happen.

“Give it here,” he said, holding out his hand. Uriah handed the vial back, and before he could think better of it, Bernt broke the seal, popped the cork and flipped the vial over his open mouth. It took an awkward few seconds, but then he felt the drop hit his tongue. It felt hot and cold at the same time and it hurt – though not as much as he’d feared. Quickly closing his mouth, he swallowed it down. He’d only have a few more seconds before it began to evaporate again, and he didn’t want to find out what it might feel like to burp up a cloud of this stuff.

Heat blossomed in his chest, slowly drifting down before suddenly being drawn down into the strange channel in his core. Once there, it sent an intense warming sensation throughout his entire mana network that lasted several seconds before abating – much longer than the coal grass had done. The process of absorbing magical materials was familiar now that he’d done it a few times, but it was still a rush.

“Wow, that was weird!” Estrid exclaimed leaning in as if to stare right into Bernt’s spirit. She couldn’t do that – not as far as he knew, anyway. Could she? Now that he thought of it, he had no idea what a druid might be able to sense. He would have to find a way to ask her about it. Magical senses that he didn’t have access to could turn out to be invaluable in his research, provided she was willing to help.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “ What was weird about it? The sensation is intense going in, but it’s gone now. Almost as if nothing had happened…”

Bernt had a feeling that consuming magical potential might be strengthening his spirit slightly overall, but he hadn’t noticed any growth, not anything like the pressure that Jori had described before her advancements.

“You didn’t feel it?” Estrid asked, raising an eyebrow. She glanced over at Uriah. “Did you?”

The hydromancer nodded, looking into the middle distance as if he was trying to place something. “It was almost like a sort of wind for a second, but it wasn’t physical. It’s gone now.”

“The ambient mana just sank into you from all around,” Estrid explained. “It pulled it in from all the way over here, and I could sense it circulating through your spirit for a second before it disappeared.”

“Ah… well, I just absorbed the material. I’ve done it a few times now, but I haven’t had time to study the process properly. There’s a special kind of channel in the spiritual sea, the core part of my spirit that does it. I drew the material through and… well, it was hot for a second. I didn’t realize it involved ambient mana at all. It might be better if I could observe it from the outside…”

Uriah snorted. “From what Olias told me, you need to raise another full sorcerer anyway, soon. Find me a way to get a ‘spiritual sea’ for myself, and you can observe all you want. Why are we even still here? From what I heard, the Conclave is going nowhere.”

“He told you about that?” Bernt sighed and shifted uncomfortably. He’d wanted to tell Uriah himself, but after he’d found a safe way to access a confluence with the elemental plane of water. “I’d like to, of course. I still have to find somewhere for us to summon a powerful elemental, though. The military shared some information with me, but we don’t have any confluences we can use inside the country. Considering how things are going up at the Peaks, I don’t know that it would be safe to just walk through Madzhur to get there, either.”

Archmage Dalbrand had implied that he’d help him negotiate for access, but Bernt still kept an eye out for anyone from the Kallrixian Mages’ Guild, or maybe a relevant government official up at the Peaks among the legitimators. So far, he hadn’t managed to find anyone who could help. There weren’t many Kallrixians there to begin with, and for the most part they seemed to be merchants and representatives from other guilds.

“Hmm,” Uriah frowned. “I read about another way in those books, but we’d have to go to Miria for that. Is it really going that badly with Madzhur? I thought they were working on an alliance up there. Why wouldn’t they let us travel through?”

Bernt rubbed at his face and groaned. “You have no idea.”

***

“The situation is worse than you know,” Minister Jesra said as Bernt settled into a chair across from her in her office at the Mages’ Guild. “My sources are telling me that our ambassador to Madzhur in Matar has been summoned to the queen’s court.”

Bernt sat back in his chair, stunned. “The Beseri ambassador? Why? Shouldn’t they be angry with the Temple of Ruzinia?”

Jesra scoffed. “Didn’t you listen to anything I told you before?! Temple politics and secular politics aren’t separate things. Your friend Torvald is a paladin and a temple representative, sure, but he’s also a relative of the king of Besermark. Do you really think he can publicly smear the Temple of Noruk and Madzhur’s capital city without drawing personal attention to himself?” She stopped and pinched the bridge of her nose and made a small, frustrated noise. “I asked you to tell him to keep his head down! Of course they think the king is behind it! They probably assume that we’ve been negotiating with the Temple of Ruzinia for support at the Conclave, working to undermine their influence.”

“But why would we do that? They know we need their help against the Duergar – it doesn’t make sense!”

“If you think that, you don’t know very much about our relationship with Madzhur,” Jesra chided. “Besides the running territorial disputes along the border south of here, we have the grudges of individual noble families to worry about. Some of the oldest families in Teres are still litigating inheritance disputes with distant relatives in Matar tracing back to the days of the Empire. If you’re looking for it, you can always find cause for backstabbing and intrigue. There’s no telling what kind of mess your paladin friend has made.”

“I see.” Bernt said, trying to look appropriately grave. He didn’t actually disagree with Torvald’s actions, but it would be rude to say so to the one who would ultimately have to deal with the consequences. The Conclave had been going nowhere, and the cultist’s announcement had, in the end, had the desired effect. Madzhur and their temples of Noruk would both have to approach the Duergar situation with greater urgency, now, or risk looking weak – something neither could possibly allow. 

“How can I help?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to talk to other legitimators in front of the Hall of Witnesses as before, but things have changed. I’m drawing more attention – they want to know what the Temple of Ruzinia is planning, but they aren’t very eager to tell me anything. Most of them seem happy about the recent developments, but they’re still keeping me at arm’s length. Nobody wants to be on Madzhur’s bad side.

“Hmm,” Jesra grumbled. “Just keep your head down. Don’t draw attention, and tell your friend to stop talking in the Conclave! If he angers the wrong people, he’s going to regret it. Even if he’s protected by his goddess – which history suggests is not a sure thing – his family is not. He needs to be more careful.”

Bernt grimaced but nodded and rose. “Alright, I will. I should get back up there. It’s getting late, and I want to make it before sundown.”

“Very well. Just keep an eye out for retaliation when it comes. I need to know when it happens as soon as possible and I'll check in a bit more often with my scrying anchor. Minutes can be critical when it comes to getting ahead of a narrative.”