When Levin met Marcus’s eyes, his body froze for the briefest of moments. Cold tension ran through his body, and his mind screamed at him to escape. He did not. A dagger appeared in Levin’s hand, and as Marcus took a step towards him, he also moved, and the two met in an exchange of blows.
Levin ducked to the right, and Marcus took the opening, his fist flying to meet the other boy’s flank. He missed however, having been baited into the opening.
While Levin swayed back and to the left, swinging the pummel of his dagger down, the next thing Marcus saw was darkness.
---
As soon as Marcus's body went right , Levin swayed to the left, spinning with his dagger aimed at the other boy. when he was behind him and sure that the other boy had fallen for his faint, he swung the pommel of his dagger into the back of Marcus’s head, sending him to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
What ever spell the boy had tried to use, Levin knew he could not have survived it. The spell utterly dominated all the shadow aether in the surrounding area, forcing the magic to yield control and aid in its manifestation , and in its birth. He felt like the shadow spells he held onto were being pulled into the maw of a great beast and whatever the spells effects were, he did not want to find out.
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Ivor asked,
“No, but I see why you’re teaching him,” Levin said as Ivor nudged the fallen body with his foot.
Ivor squeezed his eyes shut, and his hands went to his forehead, his fingers massaging. “Yes..., what a waste?”
“That’s a strong spell. Why don’t you just help him, Clara and his group.”
“That’s not the deal." Ivor shook his head. "Victor and I--”
He stopped, looked down at Marcus’s unconscious body, and continued, “I can’t involve myself. But if another person in the guild can come to their aid then there is no wrong in that,” Ivor looked at him with an implying look.
Levin looked down at the body then and frowned.
“Levin take him back. Bring him back only when he can fight.” Levin looked up and nodded towards his master.
This actually meant one thing, it meant that Ivor had given the half goliath half aasimar boy a chance to test Marcus, try him in combat, and see how well and how fast Marcus could adapt. On the other hand, he was asking Levin to test the boy the way the Veystrix tested the newest amongst themselves, who claimed to be a part of their ranks.
Sure, the boy was probably strong enough to find his way alone in Srok, but he was also too kind and too weak. And Srok was not like any of the five cities in the fourth wall. weakness got you taken advantage of, and kindness was seen as weakness. But if Ivor saw something in the boy, who was he to say otherwise?
—-
When Marcus opened his eyes next, he was in one corner of the room in the manor the seller of deeds had reached an agreement for with Clara. Cramped as it was, the smell of sweat, wet rugs and roasted beef filled the air.
“You are awake. good.” Clara spoke to get his attention.
Marcus turned, finding the white-haired Clara looking at him with bloodshot eyes. Had she been crying?
He made to sit up, but the piercing pain in the back of his head had him frowning, and he instead opted to slowly turn and raise, “what happened? How long did I sleep?”
“You slept through the night.”
“Ivor,” he hesitated to tell her but had to. She had to know that if they were going to fight, it would be on their own.” Ivor is not going to help us,” Marcus said, his hands moving to wash the sleep out of his face.
“Yes, I heard.”
“What are you going to do.”
Clara inhaled a heavy, pained breath. She closed her eyes and spoke,” We fight, then if we can’t win, we’ll have no choice. We are going to pay him off. and give him all the coin he wants.”
As Marcus was beginning to find out Clara was a fighter and not one to give in easily, she would fight to the end until she had no other options. the fact that she had been given a name by the street urchins gave her only more notoriety it was her mark, her calling card. it was well known in the rat's guild by many-- if you fought Clara it was always you left the battle with a burnt scar. Such notoriety helped in the streets of Srok, it helped Clara the Scar Giver just as much as it helped Thornan the Giant giving them credence in the streets, making their lives smoother in the grimness of the Fifth wall.
“We can’t do that,” Marcus said, raising his voice. Then he lowered it and asked, “How?”
“I have Gabe and Ethne begging on the market streets, and I sent Zek and the others to the Ashfields. If all fails, we sell the rings,” she said, her puffy face not meeting his.
After his experience on the Market streets of Desa, Marcus could not bear the thought of what they could make the girl do. And for that reason he didn't. he had to control his fear for the youngest among them.
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“And the rings! We can’t,” Marcus frowned, and eyebrows raised in shock as he realized something .” I need them. I can use them.”
“For what?” She asked a bit harshly.
“You told me that the rings have spell forms written in Runic scripts, right?” he looked at her with questioning eyes. “I can learn them, and I can fight Thornan.”
“You want to help me fight a Veystrix.”
“Yes, I can do it. You have seen my affinities,” he said, closing his eyes and calming his thoughts. “Just give me a chance.”
Clara looked at him, her eyes searching and assessing. If she were to give in now to Thornan’s demands, then everything she was building would be worthless. And Marcus, Marcus was strong. If she needed a blade stronger than even the noble dukes, she could also build that for herself, mould a weapon to point to those who would stand in her way. ‘The quiet strong type, yes.’ Marcus could be the strongest fighter in her house, and all he needed was spells, a sacrifice she could make now.
She looked at him and nodded. She unwrapped the cloth tied around her chest, pulled out all five rings and stretched her hand towards him.
The rings fell into his hands, and he looked down at the five rings, activating his innate magic-- Arcane Sight. The rings’ colours bloomed. He picked out the blue ring and tossed it back to her, receiving a confused look in return. “It has elemental magic. I can’t use that, remember?”
“Yes.” she nodded ‘Yes, you can’t but you can use all the others,’ she thought. Even though she did not know how he planned on getting the spells from the ring all she could do was hope.
-----
Marcus sat in one of the broken rooms in the manor. In front of him, the four magical rings and a sheet of the Katch paper sat. His hands moved to the katch paper and pushed aether into it, words, symbols and numbers all mixing to turn the page into something resembling one of DaVinci’s writing from a journal. It Showed his affinities, numbers and spells written as they rolled to the back page on the smudged paper.
With his high affinities, one would have thought that he would be untouchable, stronger than any one around him but sadly, this was not the case
It reminded people that strength was dependent upon the number of spells they held in their grimoires, the number of spells they could use against their enemies, and not how much aptitude they had towards a particular affinity.
To put it in better terms it was just potential a person wielded. for the physicists, it was like the large round rock the height of a person that was stuck in a hole in the ground. not so dangerous in that state because it was not moving. however push it down the path and that same dormant rock could kill a person.
When Marcus looked at the magical writings for the first time, he tried to understand them—the words, their meaning, and the runic imagery of his two innate magics. In the spell forms, he saw symbols he recognized from Ivor’s scrolls and books, all set up in a formation that Marcus guessed was the spell construct.
Just as he turned the page around, the writings began to disappear, quickly reverting the page back to an empty piece of paper. He looked at it, ‘whoever makes this sort of paper must be wealthy if everyone uses these pages in grimoires and spell scrolls,’ Marcus thought.
With that thought, Marcus pushed his aether into the page again, and the letters, numbers, and runic drawings appeared. This time, he activated his arcane sight before the aether quickly ran out of the paper.
Marcus
Affinity Strength/ Power
Light 2
Dark 3
Elemental 0
Arcane 9
Psychic 7
Shadow 8
Bloodline 6
Through his eyes, he saw that the page was filled with aether, each affinity pulling to itself like the ley lines and flowing out of the paper from all sides. The paper acted like a board as the aether wrote its truth. All the colours were there except blue, the colour of elemental affinity.
Curious about the Katch papers working, he let the aether flow out of the paper and activated his arcane sight. This time, he watched as the aether left his fingertips in a mesh of colors and soaked into the paper. He cocked his head to the side. Something had changed in one of his affinity readings.
----
Magical presence, or weight, was the influence one had in the world’s aether, how much one contributed, how much one represented, and their identity in the magical world. Marcus had no affinity for the elements, so it was fair to say that he had no magical presence in the elemental magics, and no matter what happened, he would never be able to cast a fire ball or rain down lightening on his enemies.
Marcus knew from studying Ivor’s few scrolls that there was no known way of increasing one’s lesser affinity or decreasing the higher affinity. So he was confused when he pushed his aether into the katch paper, and the results perplexed him.
Marcus
Affinity Strength/ Power
Light 2
Dark 3
Elemental 0
Arcane 2
Psychic 7
Shadow 8
Bloodline 6
Marcus watched as the aether flowed in the paper, and unlike before, the amount of arcane aether forming in the paper was reduced from the nine affinity weight to two in his arcane affinity as he observed it using his Magical sight.
He looked down at his hands, wondering,’ Is this a normal thing? Do affinities normally change, or is there something else I am missing?’
After the aether drained out of the paper, he tried it two more times with his arcane sight activated, and that’s when he realized the ratio of ambient aether being pushed into the katch paper was less when he used the arcane sight spell. and when he was not casting the spell his affinity was back to its original reading of [ arcane - 9].
If he used his arcane sight, his aether reading would be reduced, and he would have to be careful how much aether he used to cast each spell.
After that revelation, Marcus placed the paper back on the ground and turned to the four rings set on the ground.
He reached his hand out, grabbing the first ring. Casting his arcane sight, he watched black aether tendrils floating off of it. He activated it, pushed aether into it like he had done with the katch paper and waited for something, anything to happen. And still, nothing happened. He placed the dark affinity ring on his finger and tried again, and like before, nothing happened.
Marcus scratched his head and squinted at the ring—it clearly needed dark magic. He looked down at his hands, clenched his fist, and unclenched it, and wondered why nothing was happening.
He pulled the ring off and put it to the side before picking up another. This ring was the arcane ring, giving off a yellow glow. He did the same thing and unfortunately, nothing happened their as well.
All that changed however when he held the ring with light magic-- the white light would sometimes be brighter as he held it and dull at other times. It could have been chance or coincidence because when his injured body came into contact with the ring, he felt his aether of light affinity kind being pulled out of his body and into the runic scripts, and a moment later, the burn he had come to associate with his nose being struck subsided along the swelling around his face.
“They actually work!” He looked at the ring in his hand and then back to the other rings. “If I can copy this spell, I can heal Clara and the others.”
The question now was why did this one work and the others didn’t.
