4.16 A New Charter

Feedback requested: This chapter picks up about 2-3 days after ch 15, skipping some plot-irrelevant bits where Bernt is trying out more spells and generally having a bad time talking to other legitimators in front of the Hall of Witnesses. The question is, does it feel like we missed something? Should I go back and put it in?

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Bernt cast a fireball from his right hand, straight at the training dummy at the other end of Norhold’s military practice range. A moment later, the flaming projectile splashed against the warded metal figure, splattering pale, liquid flames on the ground all around. This particular spell didn’t do much, but it felt good to throw around some magic instead of trying and failing to hobnob with his social betters up at the peaks.

His current audience, six war mages, archmage Dalbrand, and an unfamiliar guild mage murmured softly. Bernt wasn’t sure why the latter, a brown-robed woman was there, but if he didn’t miss his guess, he was going to find out soon.

“You really don’t use a spellform at all?” A middle-aged gnomish woman standing near Archmage Dalbrand called out. “How does it work?” 

She wore a black armband, which meant she was a specialist, not part of one of the standard elementalist corps. The material they’d used to repair her spirit had been some kind of bone – one whose origin and function Bernt couldn’t readily work out from looking at the spellform.

“I do,” Bernt said. “We can cast spells through the sorcerous ‘investiture’, but you have to visualie the entire spellform at once. When you try to manifest it, the spell will activate instead, forming in its entirety. That means you won’t be able to adjust the influence of your regular investitures. What you can do, though, is this.”

Bernt cast again, flexing his sorcerous channels to modify the spell as he launched it straight up into the air. The accompanying tug on his spirit was uncomfortable, but he was quickly getting used to it. He’d been practicing every moment he could spare between and sometimes during Conclave sessions when he could get away with it. The fireball shot straight up, but then curved forward, seeking his intended target. When it struck the dummy, it tore through the wards with a flare of white fire. Unlike the last time, the flames didn’t go out, either, feeding on the ambient mana to sustain themselves. The spell clung to the target, which creaked as the metal warped and then began to droop like wax.

He deliberately stopped to take a breath before turning to see the reactions of the war mages. He was a professional and the continent’s only native human sorcerer, not an amateur looking for approval. That’s what he tried to tell himself, anyway. All of these people were more advanced spellcasters than he was – at least as traditional mages. As the first new sorcerers he’d helped to make, he wanted to impress them and hopefully challenge the prejudices they most likely held against sorcerers as second-class spellcasters. So, he’d shown them his best shot – a manaburn fireball imbued with his will, allowing it to seek its target. 

“Hells,” someone cursed, “what happened to the wards?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” A tall man answered from the back. “It’s the Illurian mage-mariner architecture, I recognize it. I want to know how it changed direction mid-air. Wasn’t that just one spell?”

A dwarf woman shook her head. “Nah, he cast control flames. Had to have.”

Someone like Pollock could do better, Bernt was sure, but the old wizard was a highly specialized pyromancer and a magister with over half a century of experience. Most of the people watching had to be nearly twice his age, and he was pleased and relieve to see that they looked shocked. Only Archmage Dalbrand looked unfazed, which made sense considering that they’d talked about this in advance. The guild mage was busily taking notes with a pencil on a small paper pad.

He’d taken a risk, treating the first batch of burnouts before even signing a contract, but the Archmage had asked him to do it, as well as this little demonstration, and Bernt didn’t want to be uncooperative. He was asking for a lot. Besides, judging by the guild mage, he suspected there was more on the line than just getting a head start on healing a handful of mages.

Feeling a bit more confident at the reaction he’d just gotten, Bernt smiled. “As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, you can feel the physically manifested portion of your spirit directly. The sensation can take a little getting used to, but it’s worth it. With practice, you can learn to manipulate those channels directly, squeezing some shut or widening others to modify your mana flow and change the way your investiture affects your spells.”

The brown-robed guild mage cleared her throat. “And how does this work in practice? How can you predict how your spellform will react with the sorcerous investiture, or whatever portion of it you’re using?”

“Well, it’s sorcery…” Bernt replied. “The most efficient way is just to try it out – trial and error. A pure sorcerer doesn’t have the spellcasting variety of a mage, but they can modulate and modify the spells they have very precisely.”

“Hmm.” The woman jotted something down, giving no indication what she thought of that. “Modulate how, exactly? Do you have an example?”

Bernt opened his mouth to explain, but then thought better of it and raised his right hand instead. He cast two torch spells and hung them in the air in front of him, out over the sands of the practice range.

“My perpetual flame investiture should make all of my spells extraordinarily dangerous. They consume any mana they come in contact with.” To illustrate, he cast a small, regular fire dart at the first spell, which flared brightly on contact, consuming it. “Illurian mage mariners probably have to edit this effect out of their spells to avoid damaging equipment and endangering people every time they cast a spell outside of combat,” he grinned and cast another dart at the other torch spell, “but I don’t.”

The projectile passed through the light, dimming a little, but passing on mostly unimpeded to splash down on the ground thirty strides away. The torch spell itself didn’t even flicker. A few of the war mages exchanged glances as if unsure what they were supposed to have noticed, but Archmage Dalbrand was whispering to the gnomish mage with the black armband and the guild mage’s eyes were wide.

“How long will it burn?” she asked, her pencil still scritching on her paper pad, though she wasn’t even looking.

Bernt shrugged. “Forever, as far as I’ve been able to test. I can extinguish it, of course – or a druid could, too. It’s safe, though. The light won’t absorb any more mana than it needs to maintain its current size. As long as you don’t set an enchanted object down right next to it, it won’t break anything. Oh, and,” he added, remembering an important point “it won’t set mages on fire from the inside on contact with their spirit, like the original spell does.”

“How did you…? Oh, I don’t want to know,” she said with a grimace.

There were a few more questions after that, but Bernt could tell that he’d gotten through to them. The war mages wanted to know how exactly to begin manipulating their new sorcerous investitures, and he was happy to oblige. The guild mage left soon after, giving Archmage Dalbrand a covert nod that Bernt probably wasn’t supposed to notice. 

Twenty minutes later, Dalbrand led him back to the same office they’d spoken in before and handed him what looked like a slim book, bound in new leather.

“The charter. The Mages’ Guild has agreed, with the backing of the Duke, to found an experimental order of sorcerers to support your research. Once you sign it, it’ll be permanently archived in Teres with a secondary copy at the official headquarters, which will be at the Mages’ Guild here.”

Bernt stared down at it, feeling stunned and somehow, bizzarely underwhelmed at the same time. If this really worked out, then they were making history here right now. This was actually happening! But… it felt like something that should be accompanied by some kind of ceremony. Instead they were just… sitting in an office.

“It worked?” he blurted. “Just like that?”

“Not just like that, no,” the archmage said chidingly. “There was quite a bit of back and forth involved. Our local guild head doesn’t like the project and refused to sign off on it initially. But you had the backing of the duke himself, as well as my own support, and internally the endorsement of a well-respected researcher back in Halfbridge, and some more unorthodox support from Archmage Iriala of the Halfbridge. In the end, he didn’t really have a choice.”

Bernt blinked. “Wait, what? What happened?” He hadn’t even considered that Magister Pollock or Archmage Iriala would be drawn into this, or he would have written them to at least give them some warning.

“She politely offered to host your new order of sorcerers in Halfbridge.” Dalbrand explained. “After that, Duke Renhild threatened to withdraw funding for some of Archmage Carlan’s pet projects. He also suggested that, with our forces spread so thin after sending reinforcements to Teres, we might be forced to lean quite heavily on support from the Mages’ Guild the next time Madzhur tries to seize the crystal mines on the border again.”

Judging by the satisfied smile on the archmage’s face, it was clear that Dalbrand didn’t think very much of Archmage Carlan, presumably the head of the local Mages’ Guild. Still, that didn’t mean this was good for Bernt. By the sound of it, he’d unintentionally made a powerful enemy here without even knowing. An enemy who would, by all indications, be his boss very soon.

“Why did he do that?” he asked, though he could guess the answer.

“Because location matters. We need more spellcasters here, where they’ll be available if we need them to fight. Besides Rimehorn Point in the north, this is the most active conflict zone in the entire country. We’re not officially at war with Madzhur, but it’s not for lack of fighting. Margrave Aziri has wanted Duke Renhild’s blood for decades, not to mention our mines, of course.”

Bernt nodded, suppressing a grimace. He’d known that the Duke’s and especially Dalbrand’s interest in him was going to be military in nature, but he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t get dragged into a war against other humans. He would have actually preferred to do all this in Halfbridge if he thought that Count Narald were willing to finance it. But the Count’s coffers were already strained to their breaking point dealing with reconstruction and keeping the refugee population alive through the winter. 

Bernt worked in infrastructure maintenance – he could tell when the government was running out of money.

Opening the fancy leather book, he read through the text as the archmage looked on. It started off describing the funding that guild would receive from the duke, the order’s purpose, and the responsibilities that members this order would have to the Duchy regarding its defense. It echoed the same language used by the Mages’ Guild itself, from what Bernt could remember, so they were probably just being thorough.

Then it got to Bernt’s role in this new organization. It named him as the order’s lead researcher, reporting directly to…

“Wait, I’m not going to be in charge of the organization?” he blurted out, surprised.

Archmage Dalbrand raised an eyebrow at him and scoffed. “We can do a lot, but even the Underkeepers are run by archmages. Old Carlan would have probably forced the duke to make good on his threats if we’d tried to insert you directly into a high ranking position within the guild. That’s guild business. You’re not even a proper magister, yet. More importantly, they’re right to require a certain level of advancement for leadership roles – we do the same in the army. It helps to limit the damage that nepotism and political appointees can cause to our hierarchies.

“I understand that,” Bernt agreed, flushing and hesitating for a moment as he realized that he was exactly that – a political appointee being pushed into place by a powerful noble. “I just meant, who would be more qualified to run something like this? Being an archmage doesn’t provide insight into sorcery. I’m literally the only one who can do this!”

“And that’s why you’re going to be the lead researcher,” Dalbrand replied calmly. “Which, I might add, is also a position that you ordinarily wouldn’t be considered for except that, as you mentioned, you’re the only possible choice. Congratulations.” He turned and gestured around at his office. “Don’t be upset, we’re looking out for you. Running an order of mages, like any organization, is mostly paperwork and politics – something Head Librarian Zaira is intimately familiar with and qualified to manage. Besides, if you honestly plan to travel to confluences to create new sorcerers with the help of summoned elementals, your frequent absences would inevitably result in administrative problems.” 

“Ah… right,” Bernt conceded. That did sound like it would create problems. “Wait, you have confluences for me? Where are they? What kind?”

The archmage held out a map, which Bernt snatched from his hands. “These are confidential, used exclusively for summoning research and by the few summoners we have working here, in Teres and in Yetin’s Harbor, so don’t discuss it with anyone else. You’ll have to leave the map with me, and you can only go there with members of your order who have been sworn to secrecy.”

Excited, Bernt examined the map only to immediately deflate again. There was an air confluence out on the northern plains, beyond Loamfurth, and an earth confluence in the mountains northwest of Gobford, both marked as “minor” confluences, whatever that meant. “No water confluence?”

He’d been hoping for somewhere to safely summon a powerful water elemental for Uriah, but at this rate… well, it didn’t look very good.

“There are several in the Illurian Sea, but none within our waters, no.” Dalbrand confirmed. “We might be able to negotiate access to the Kallrixian one, though.” He cleared his throat and nodded at the charter, which Bernt was still holding. “In light of that, there are a few conditions on your charter there, if you’ll flip to the next page.”

Sections 1.a, c, and d, 2.b and d, 4 and 6 are will go into force only upon confirmation of initial findings by lead researcher Wizard Bernard, wherein… 

Bernt stared at the section numbers and flipped back, scanning the relevant portions. They were about the order’s responsibilities, recruitment, and most importantly, funding. “What does this mean?”

“The order is technically formed as soon as you sign, and you’ll receive pay from the guild to continue your research so long as you submit regular and detailed progress reports, but the guild won’t allow you to formally recruit anyone else until you prove you can actually do as you claim. You said yourself that you haven’t managed to reproduce your method for creating full sorcerers like yourself, and the guild demanded assurances before attempting to reproduce your existing work at scale.”

Berng sighed. “You mean, they don’t risk failing at something that ‘barbarians’ in Miria have been doing for milennia.”

The archmage shrugged. “If you say so. Don’t worry about it. Just treat our burnouts and bring us another full sorcerer or two of your making and you’ll have exactly what you asked for. Besides, the pay is nothing to scoff at.”

Bernt flipped back to the section on remuneration and looked, eyebrows shooting up in surprise as his stomach did a little flip. No, it really wasn’t.