Chương 24: Study

It got worse before it got better. Fwatta's assistant had to heat up a poker and cauterize the wounds so that the broken rootlets did not grow back. Only then could the healer actually restore me. But the look on Fwatta's face was really something. Usually all I get is boredom or just a little impatience or even contempt, depending on the injury. But this time the healer actually looked kind of freaked out. I've never heard of anyone actually throwing a professional healer for a loop like that.

So, after I was cauterized and cured, I walked back to Magister Nukhail's study, and knocked on the door. We sat and chatted for a bit about the limits of my sorcery, and the process of slowly escalating the attempts until you find your limit. He thinks I was a little too incautious. Honestly, that's fair. And that's where I was when my parents barged in to hug me and scold me and cry on me and kiss my head. Because every time I screw up with my magic someone has to run off and tattle on me to the Duke and Duchess.

Honestly, that's fair too.

"We're pulling you back from those duties," my father said.

"You're doing too much!"

"But, we never know how much is enough, until we know how much is too much," I pointed out. My mother recoiled.

"Those may be the most dangerous words I've ever heard."

"Oh. Then I overshot badly; I was trying for 'cheeky', not 'dangerous'." I smiled weakly. Magister Nukhail spoke up with a clearing of his throat and a small old-man groan.

"She did overextend herself," he said carefully.

"But, every sorcerer does. It is rather a necessary stage of development, at least once. And of them, this was one of the best I've ever seen. Nobody died, the injuries were minor, she was able to get treatment quickly, she was in no actual danger. She only overextended slightly so she has a very accurate idea what her actual limits really are. There is no permanent disfigurement or disability, and her personality is unaffected. From the day she became a sorceress, this was her ideal outcome..

Every other version of events is worse than this." Funny how that was not at all comforting to either of my parents? He sat back with a creak and a pained, arthritic groan.

"Now, your daughter is beyond merely being powerful, or skilled. She is motivated, and she is innovative, which are qualities far more valuable in a sorceress. Your daughter is ambitious, and clever. I would tell you both that you are blessed beyond reason, but I know enough of you both to know that her capacities are not anomalous, but inherited."

"You're a flatterer," Mother said immediately.

"Trying to take our attention from the fact that sorcery is always dangerous." The old man leaned the other direction, some of his joints made little snapping sounds.

"I know that what happened was frightening, but not actually dangerous. Your daughter is wise enough that she did not overexert by very much. And even if the situation were considerably worse, this is something we're permitted to fix. There were witnesses present who could bring her to help, she was not abandoned. And if this had been considerably worse, if her legs had changed to wood, there are solutions still.

Under the very worst-case scenario, I would coach her through the process of converting, transforming her body into oak so that she could change it back. I would hold that in reserve- after all other options- because that spell should only be attempted by experienced and practiced sorcerers, and the first time should be under the tutelage of an even more experienced mage."

My father was holding my boots, punched full of holes when my feet thrust out roots that speared through them to find the welcoming soil all around. He turned it this way and that.

"You're not teaching her that, are you?" he said, clearly worried. I rolled my eyes. This argument again, which I always lost. Magister Nukhail went straight to his usual winning play.

"She is going to the Academy, yes? She will have other magic instructors there? If anywhere will have teachers the equal of myself, it is there at the Academy. And by then, she'll be four years older, stronger, and smarter. If we were confronted today by a deadly threat to life and limb that could only be fixed by her using her conversion spell, I would reluctantly help her with that. But there is not such a threat, and no reason not to wait until she is better equipped." Mother looked relieved.

Father looked at me like he suspected I might be experimenting with this in secret. Which, yes, is totally on-brand for me but this time his suspicion is totally unjustified! I mean, ordinarily I really would have done it by now. Shapeshifting is rad as fuck. But half the bad endings on the sorcerer route of Harigold Glitter come from shapeshifting. There are so many ways to explode yourself and permanently traumatize everyone watching.

So, I actually did have what counts as a first-hand experience with how dangerous this spell really could be. And yeah, experimenting with it at eleven is foolhardy. My father handed me back my shoes, reluctant to let them out of his hands. I took it slow, held them with him, and after a few reluctant seconds he let go on his own. I cast my spell, curved leather to fix them, and then the woolen socks I'd put on. The material morphed and merged, as if nothing had ever happened.

I gave him a smile, the most comforting I could, and put the shoes onto my feet, all intact, good as new. What magic breaks, magic can fix. With all the usual polite words, they headed back out the door and shut it behind them. I fixed the brass latch that Father had not even noticed he had broken in his rush to get in.

"You know that was you did was a bit foolish, yes?" he said, once we were clear.

"Thanks for covering for me," I said. I sat back in my chair and lifted my feet, wriggling my toes inside of my shoes and socks. I had never been able to master wool since it does not have an essence independent of sheep. I only learned to conjure and curve wool once I developed my affinity for the wool-bearing animals. Funny, because I learned to channel owls because I had access to owl feathers. There may be a clue there. He harrumphed.

"They're not my student, you are. They're just employers, there's always more employers." That was, weirdly, very touching to me.

"Now, we should make an appointment with some weights and measures to find out precisely your limits, in various materials. And we stop when I say we do. Now then, tell me more about your levin experiments." I did, and it got very technical very fast. Initially he had been extremely impressed by the results I got channeling lightning, just like I did. The ability to suddenly muster super-speed is pretty amazing. But, it did greatly increase the resistance of everything, especially air.

So not only was I working harder to do everything, but I was having trouble breathing the whole time, on top of the exertion of maintaining the spell itself. These really did seem to be significant downsides that mitigated the overt power of lightning. Channeling steel makes me stronger, but not as strong as steel itself. Or as hard and resistant. I could make myself lighter but not as light as air. The limitation is my own: inexperience and undeveloped reserves.

Or in game terms, my Strength score is still too damn low. The higher I get it, the more effective my spells will be. Intellect gives me mana and helps me learn new magic, but it is not the stat that actually sets my limits. So, channeling lightning using my low Strength would not make me unstoppable. And while running at about three hundred miles per hour sure does seem unstoppable, it was increasingly clear that it was not a power to solve all my problems, any more than void has been. I tried, mind you.

I tried curving air to make it easier while I was running levin-fast. But thinning the air to ease my passing made the air shockingly cold, enough to offset the benefits. Generating air for me to breathe just made more air that was hard to move. Trying to magically move air into and out of my lungs to ease the burden on my breathing went badly, even at very weak levels just to test the concept. I got some very interesting injuries that Fwatta fortunately did not care enough to question me about.

Yeah, using my magic aerokinesis to assist my breathing is just a bad idea. Trying to control every millimeter of air traveling through a human respiratory system while it was working? Similar to performing surgery blind, on yourself, while running, using someone else's hands. I channeled steel to try to harden myself up so the air-curving would not injure me, but it turns out that channeling both levin energy and a conductive metal at the same time would have.... interactions.

"And all the mana just fell out of me at once," I sighed.

"Turning myself into a conductor and the generator at the same time just means that everything I touch becomes a ground point, and it's not just the electricity that flows down to ground, it's all the essence that is melded with electricity. I'm sure there's a way around this, but I can't experiment with it if I'm going to use my mana for anything else as well." Taking me off village-building duties did not excuse me from mailroom duties. I carried a satchel upstairs, a fore-and-aft saddlebag stuffed with letters.

The cubby they used for my void-doors was next to the sorting room, which has recently expanded as our manor's basement has increasingly become the central nexus of communications across three duchies. And the overworked girls in the sorting room were always looking for any way they could take some pressure off, to make the difference between breaking-even and just-barely-falling-behind. And I was around enough to be considered part of the crew for purposes of foisting a little work or asking a little favor.

And so I was carrying nearly fifty pounds of paper upstairs. Nathan and I no longer shared a room; that had been fine before puberty, but it was unseemly now. Still, his room was right across from mine, and we both had walk-right-in privileges for each other's space. I pushed open his door and walked in.

"Nathan, brother, older by two minutes, why are you receiving mail from literally every corner of the kingdom? Every baron, count, duke, mark and earl has written to you in the last three days. Half the lords and knights, as well. What gives?"

"Ah!" he said, looking up delightedly.

"Finally!" Picture a mad scientist of calligraphy. His normally-impeccable hair was splayed out wildly from the goggles he had pushed up on his forehead rather than lifting away and settling in place, thank you very much. I wear goggles for my work too but I don't muss my hair.

He was ink-stained in layers, I could see slightly dimmed spots where ink had been almost-but-not-quite cleaned away, and a little darker streak where ink had spattered and been wiped at but not washed, and drops of ink he had not even noticed yet. His hands had that really deep-set black grime that I had not seen since I replaced my own brake pads, back when I had a clunker of a sedan that needed more work than I was willing to pay someone else for.

He had on his oldest, most worn, most worn-out clothes, chore clothes for sure, and they would need to be thrown out when this was done. And over it, an apron of thin leather that glistened with a thin coat of oil, so that the ink did not stain it even worse than it had the rest of him. His face had two almost-clean patches around his eyes, proof that he had been wearing the goggles until I came in. And he was surrounded by apparati. Stands, measures, meters, weights.

Vials, titrating droppers, matches, small knives, a dozen small burlap sacks. Sand was scattered about, wadded papers, files, candles, a rack of dried herbs, stretched canvases on frames, a palette and four tubes of paint that all looked identical to me- all of it spread over three tables and a second writing desk that was sitting opposite his normal writing desk. Oh, and lenses. What looked like every working magnifying lens that Quethron and I had made before our disagreement.

Several of them were attached to his goggles on little jointed arms so he could arrange them how he needed them, without giving up a hand.

"Nathan," I said, drawing his name out slowly. I recognized my tone of voice: it's how people talk when they realize they're in a small space with an unpredictable animal. Or a lot of unsafely-stored fireworks. It's how most folks talk to someone who might have gone crazy and they need to know how bad it really is.

"I'm having a hard time seeing the explanation for all this," I said to him. He grinned. A mad-scientist grin.

"Let's call it my new hobby."

"Or, let's not call it anything and just tell me what's going on," I said, and handed him the satchel. I'd borrowed strength from steel essence to carry it up. He of course handled it no problem.

"Take a look at this," he said, and handed me a tome. It was a thickly-bound book he had at his side, a quarter of the pages already written in, the rest blank. It seemed to have been written by dozens of different people, and skimming the contents it seemed that most of the text was about chemistry, the preparation of ink and paper.

"You're on pages five and six," he said, sorting the letters aside, organizing them by some arcane filing system. I flipped to pages five and six. Here were the pages I had written in, detailing exactly how I dipped my quill, how often I would resharpen it, which store I bought my ink from, and the way I held my fingers when I folded a page.

"What the fuck?" I asked, staring.

"So," he said, "my new hobby. And maybe my new profession, I've not decided. I've spent years practicing every method of shaping letters and brushing strokes, different turns of the pen and the effects of different grips. I've recently made a study of ink, paper and sand, as well, and with a little study and practice I should be able to form a perfect mimicry of the penmanship and stationery of every genteel in the kingdom!"

"Fucking... why?" I stared at different pages. Taeril. Mester Demes. Lewot Snairlin. The king and queen. Yheta. He laughed a little.

"Originally, for a prank. I was going to arrange a hundred people to all arrive at the same place and the same time, expecting to walk into a surprise party for themselves. All of them standing around, expectant, waiting for one of the others to yell 'surprise!' but then it all sort of took on a life of its own. And now I think this may be how I can help. Our family is in trouble. You have been helping with magic. I think I may help with my studies." Oh. It's this.

In the game, spy-track Nathan has a listed skill for forgery, and another for impersonation. Properly leveled up, they can open up a lot of possibilities. I never thought it was as cool as the thief's ability to pick pockets and squeeze into small spaces, but Nathan sure seemed pleased with it. If you level up Pickpocket far enough, you can steal someone's weapon in the middle of combat. That's just dirty fun!

"So, all this?" I said, gesturing at the letters he was arranging and stacking, brought up by yours truly.

"Handwriting samples, and more," he said.

"I'll identify their paper stock, handling technique, signet and seal, and the makeup of their ink. Then I can re-create those as well. But also their signatures, in exquisite precision and exactitude!"

"How?" I asked. Humoring him.

"I asked," he replied, humoring me.

"No really," I said, interested now. He rolled his eyes.

"Natalie, I asked. I wrote to all the earls and dukes, barons and baronets, and their wives and parents, and I asked for their advice.

'I'm trying to develop my own unique style and script, something distinctive that I can use daily. Do you have any advice?' as well as some genial get-to-know-each-other things, demonstrating a bit of personal knowledge and investment. And so they've all written back to me, describing their own style and method for developing their signature. Now, after casting such a wide net, I'm sure to have gotten some notice.

A few letters have mentioned that this earl or knight had mentioned my letters to someone else, so people understand that I've written around. Most of them think it's cute," he grinned. A little manic, if I do say so myself.

"The eleven-year-old duke-to-be, pen-palling all the other nobles of the realm, asking their advice on something innocuous."

"Uh," I said.

"Huh." Okay, not witty repartee. I was out of my depth here. He was up to his elbows in paper now.

"Now, I won't be able to really use this to full effect right away," he said, frowning.

"For one thing, I need practice. For another, I need for everyone to have forgotten what I've done! It would not be a good look, say, if one little boy got handwriting samples and advice from every noble in the land, and then suddenly a master forger starts falsifying dozens of letters and upsetting the local political structure."

"It might take some time for that memory to die down," I said and hid a smirk behind my hand.

"Maybe, for example, about four years?"

"Hmm," he said, considering it, musing. He rubbed at his chin, smearing ink.

"About the time we enter Academy, I should think. No sooner than that." Imagine that.

"It should be a lot easier if you're still ferrying letters around," he said.

"But with schooling, you may have to stop."

"Probably, yeah," I said.

"Why so much easier? Just less downtime in transit?"

"Partly that," he said, starting to lose interest.

"And partly because faster delivery will encourage others to reply sooner, putting less thought into what they've read and what they're writing. And I can just slip my forgeries into the same mailsack as everything else, and there's no record of where it came from. You've centralized mail delivery, and centralization always brings certain vulnerabilities."

"So you've assembled an entire calligraphy lab," I said, glancing at the labels on his ink.

"And you've got four years to practice people's prose. You'll probably be pretty good by the time we get to school."

"Pretty good?" he retorted, scoffing confidently.

"Professional forgers have made careers off of two-to-five handwritings and signatures, a half-dozen seals. I have everything. And, by then I may be able to infer even more. I've read about people who could determine someone's state of mind and emotional framework by analyzing handwriting!" In the real world, that line of study has been thoroughly debunked. It sounds like it could work, but nobody has shown it's any more reliable than just guessing. But in this game? With his skills?

Handwriting analysis actually works in this setting. He can combine his Veracity skill with Forgery to evaluate the honesty of written words. I've gone my whole life not being able to tell a lie around him. Now, this may soon extend to everyone, whether they're face-to-face or not. Maybe he's ready to take on the world on the spy route, after all.