Chương 17: The Custodians

In that split second, Ari tried to recall exactly how she ended up in this predicament. She'd been staring at the glyphs, the beautiful coalesced orbs of reds and blacks with splashes of gold and brown. Truly, the fight had felt less important than her observations of the essences, particularly the Vacu orbs that stayed in place, arraying together, unflinching. That was not how Vacu typically behaved. Vacu was shy and quiet, not dark and menacing.

So Ari was interested in what made it change, so much so that she'd drifted too close to the proverbial sun. And now, lightning was headed her way. Her hand jerked up automatically to yank the essences out of position and break the bonds. However, she paused. If she broke the spell, that would cause backlash on the caster. Backlash from a spell this strong would hurt them very badly. It might be better if Arielle just took the blow.

After all, it was her fault for being in the way, and she was pretty sure it wouldn't kill her faster than a healing spell could revive her. She felt the heat kiss her face, the sparks touch her skin. She was ready to deal with the pain with gritted teeth and endurance, eyes wide open as Mossbornes do. Then the heat vanished. Only smoke and the shimmering atmosphere remained of what was once a lightning whip inches from her face. The fog cleared to show Selena and the boy, now weaponless, staring at her.

"Who the devil are you?" A loud, deep voice boomed across the entire hall. A man as broad and strapping as her father emerged from the side of the room, where about six other students were standing, somewhat shielded by the staircase Now Ari typically couldn't read emotions very well, but this man had one of the most expressive faces she'd ever seen. She could tell he was angry; his bushy beard practically trembled with it. So did the hair that was tucked in a messy knot at the base of his skull.

Speaking of hair, he had a lot of it... everywhere. He wasn't wearing a mage's robe, and his shirt wasn't buttoned all the way, showing a sprouting of chest and arm hair. He looked more mountain creature than man, and the ground trembled as he stomped over to her.

"Are you daft, girl?" Ari shook her head.

"No, I'm Ari."

"I don't care what your name is. Why are you standing within the duelling circle?'

"The…" She suddenly noticed she was standing within a glowing circle that had been laced with Vacu essences running underground. Ah. She understood. It was a boundary meant to keep the magic from escaping the circle, thereby keeping any passing students safe. That is, unless they walked right into it. Although Ari still thought this was a very unsafe place to duel. It was practically at the entrance. A visitor could arrive and have no idea about the duelling circle limits.

The faculty could have also added a mechanism that prevented other students from walking onto the circle at all, but that might require too much essence and a complex spell. Ari was about to tell him all this, but realized that he didn't seem in the mood to be advised. It was better to apologize.

"Sorry," she told the man.

"I didn't realize what it was."

"How could you not know what a duelling circle is? Are you stupid?" Ari shook her head.

"Not usually."

"Cut her some slack, Graham," Selena called as she started to stretch. Now that the fight was over, she was completely relaxed. The boy next to her looked a lot more exhausted than she did and bent over to catch his breath.

"She's new. It's her first day here, so she didn't know the rules." Graham's frown diminished in ferocity.

"You're new?"

"Yes."

"Shouldn't someone be showing you around? Telling you where not to step?"

"Most first years don't need a babysitter," one of the other students who had been standing to the side said.

"Prim, don't do that," another girl said.

"She's young."

"So? Most young people have common sense. How does anyone older than five forget to watch for a duelling circle?"

"She wasn't raised in Ascendant society," Selena said.

"She's Mossborne, so she may not even know what a duelling circle is." Ari knew, in theory. She'd just never seen one before. She also wondered how Selena knew about her parentage, even as someone muttered, "Well, that explains it," and someone else said, "What's a Mossborne doing here?"

"I know a few Mossbornes," Professor Graham said, his tone softening as he rubbed his chin.

"I thought they all came in much bigger sizes."

"We usually do," Ari responded.

"I'm small for my age."

"It's a shame you didn't gain intelligence to compensate," the first girl, Prim, said.

"What are you talking about?" A grinning boy piped in.

"She's here, isn't she? She might be the most intelligent Mossborne there ever was." The students snickered, and the professor pinned them with a scowl. Ari had enough experience with this type of scenario to know she was being mocked. She wasn't sure she cared, though. She didn't know them, so their opinions truly didn't matter to her.

"Enough of that," the professor barked at the students, and they immediately stopped their laughter.

"Yes, Professor." He faced Arielle again.

"You should be more careful and thank your lucky stars. If Selena didn't have such advanced control, if she'd been even a millisecond slower, you would have been traumatized and likely scarred for life." She nodded, feeling embarrassment crawl up her cheeks.

"Sorry."

"What first-year group are you in?" Lyra had mentioned this.

"Group B."

"Then I'll be seeing you at combat class tomorrow," he said, and his eyes flashed as he smiled.

"I'm sure you'll learn there what it means to be more aware of your surroundings." She cocked her head. What did he mean by that? Why did it sound like a threat? Was he going to give her another test? She exhaled. Yet another thing to study for. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Why are the duels so close to the entryway?" Ari finally asked, because it was bugging her, and she felt like she couldn't leave without knowing.

"Isn't it dangerous to passersby?" He raised both eyebrows at her question.

"Yes, but that's what the circle is for. Restricting the attacks and preventing them from hurting anyone on the outskirts."

"Regardless, isn't there another room you can use?" He seemed stunned by her question, facing the other students with an astounded look.

"Am I being told off right now?"

"I think so," the smiling boy said.

"We do have a dedicated duelling hall," Selena answered.

"Unfortunately, it was overrun by wisps, so we can't use it. We're waiting for the custodians to take care of it, and in the meantime, this is the only place that has duelling circles, as it's typically used for the showcase."

"What's a wisp?" Before Selena could answer, Graham said, "You can ask Woden that when you see him. Now, if you don't mind, Little Miss Mossborne, you're holding up my class."

"Oh, sorry." Feeling awkward in the ensuing silence, she simply curtsied and walked away. She was halfway to her destination, the Luxarium, when her mind wandered to her leveling points once more. Phineas had said that her system would guide her through all the level-ups and would even suggest to her how to allot her points based on what build she wanted.

He stressed that she didn't have to worry about builds just yet, as she was still an apprentice, but it was something to keep in the back of her mind when allotting levelling points. At this stage, they would only give a slight boost to her mental or physical stats, but it was the cumulative effect over several level-ups that mattered the most. It didn't affect her cores at all, or her magic, or her casting, or anything else she cared about.

So Ari wasn't sure exactly what she needed them for or which of her physical or mental attributes she wanted to boost, slight as it might be. Maybe Elric would know. She should ask him. A subtle breeze blew across the grass as she walked around the Luxarium. She heard voices as she approached.

"Are you seriously going to grumble for the entire day?" a female voice started.

"I don't know," a male voice shot back.

"Did you reroute the secondary flow without the runes stabilized, going against all operating procedures?"

"Relax, old man. The pipe's not going to burst in the next five minutes… probably."

"Probably? You're betting the fate of everyone on this island on a 'probably'?"

"Aren't you being a little melodramatic?"

"No, I'm being an appropriate level of dramatic. This happens too often with you, Rava. I ask you to fix a problem, you make it worse, and then I have to spend more time fixing your fix."

"And you always do. You know what that's called? Teamwork." Ari eyed the bickering pair, a short, reed-thin man, and a taller, huskier woman. The woman had short brown hair tapered close to her skull and ear lobes lined with various rings. The man, on the other hand, was devoid of hair except for a thin vertical strip right underneath his nose. They wore identical brown robes and were facing each other in their standoff, the man leaning in and belligerent, the woman leaning away and relaxed.

Neither of them acknowledged Ari, even when she was practically right next to them.

"It's not like I'm the only one who makes mistakes," the woman was saying.

"Or are we both forgetting how wobbly your anchoring was on the northern rotation?"

"It wasn't wobbly."

"It was."

"For only a short time as I tried to align the vacuum channel."

"It was already aligned. That's the problem with you. Your obsession with micro-angles is exhausting, and it's probably the reason you're bald."

"No, I'm bald because your carelessness makes me rip my hair out."" My carelessness? You–" He held up his hand, cutting her off.

"Perhaps we should stop arguing in front of the student so that she may tell us how we can help her."

"Yes. Perhaps." They both faced her simultaneously with such a sharp pivot that she almost stepped back.

"Hello." She cleared her throat.

"I'm Arielle Blacksoil. I'm looking for Rava and Garrick."

"I'm Rava," The woman cocked her head.

"You're a first year."

"Yes. Dean Octavius sent me here to help you and increase my essence allowance."

"Ah. You ran out of Massa for the week, didn't you?"

"Yes." She chuckled.

"You're the first to do that in a while. Val must have been brutal on you."

"Val?"

"Professor Valeria. I call her Val. She hates it, so it makes me do it more."

"Oh." Before Ari could clarify that she hadn't yet had any classes with Professor Valeria, Rava soldiered on.

"You're right on time. Garrick and I were just on our way to release a pressure point in North Base." She jabbed the man in the side.

"This grump is Garrick, by the way. He's the lead custodian and lover of leyline microangles." Garrick shot her a dirty look, turning away from them to squat next to the wall. There was a black technical device soldered at the base that he tuned while adjusting the folding measuring rod he held next to it.

"What do I need to do?" Ari asked.

"You're going to help me sweep the essence shards and manalings back into the pipes. There was a massive spillage over there, from a backed-up channel, and I also have to take care of a pressure release close by. You've learned your cleaning spells, haven't you?" Arielle started shaking her head, then recalled that she'd seen the spell script once in her textbook, so she nodded.

"Perfect. Do you have your miniscroll and wand with you?"

"No, but I can go get it." She waved a hand.

"You know what? We'll do it tomorrow. It's already pretty late anyway, and I don't like being on North Base when it gets dark. You know all kinds of shadowraiths can escape and eat our brains."

"Don't worry. They won't be able to find yours," Garrick commented, and she made a motion to kick him, though she never followed through.

"Plus," Rava added.

"We're already super busy tonight, taking care of this choked pipe."

"That you caused," Garrick muttered. Rava ignored him.

"Okay, so tomorrow, Arielle, after your last class, we'll meet at that shed," She pointed to one sitting at the edge of the lawn, "And we'll head to North Base. Okay?" She nodded.

"Can I ask a question?" Ari said.

"Yes."

"What's a manaling and a shadowwraith?" Rava frowned.

"You haven't gotten to that part yet in Creatures and Clans?" Ari shook her head.

"That's weird. I could have sworn Woden lectured on that weeks ago." There was a faint hiss coming from underneath the ground as Garrick twisted another nob. Ari wondered if she was the only one who could hear it. Rava turned to him.

"Garrick, will you do the honors of explaining to the first year what a manaling is?"

"The academy generates and controls its own essence leyline," he said.

"And with usage, there is waste. Most of that dissipates into the atmosphere. Some of it can be reused, and it's redirected into the leyline. But some of it can clump together and form manalings. These are made of broken essences from incomplete spells that render the essence damaged but still containing mana. So instead of dissipating into the atmosphere like used essences, these broken ones clump together and sink, sometimes into the sea or the grass.

There, they can mutate living things or even inanimate objects and cause a lot of problems. For example, if Vacu-dominant manalings are left unchecked, they might develop into shadowwraiths."

"I don't understand," she said.

"Why do the broken essences clump together?"

"Well, it's normal," he adjusted his stance and explained as he worked.

"Broken essences are caused by students practicing carelessly and making bonding errors that chip at the essence, which then makes the spell fail before it's cast. The essence from this spell is already purified, but isn't used and can't be used either because it's broken. They still have their bonding capabilities, and often they will bond with another broken essence close to them, making them clump together. Usually, when this happens, it makes them heavier, so they sink lower, some even to the ground.

We then use a manaling detector to find them and sweep them into designated pipes and vacuum channels underground. This takes them to North Base, where we get rid of them." He sighed.

"That's the hardest part because it requires a bit of Vacu to do that. Rava and I have pretty well-balanced cores, but none of us are Vacu-inclined."

"Almost no one is," Rava said.

"Probably for the best. Vacu is an extremely cursed element."

"Don't start on your superstitious nonsense again," Garrick said.

"It's not superstitious. We always have problems with our Vacu students. Three years ago, one of them disappeared into thin air. Another one started seeing ghosts and demons everywhere and went mad."

"As I remember, he tried to summon those demons."

"Exactly. And they drove him crazy. Not to mention all the misfortune that befell all the Vacu-dominant clans." She shook her head, then seemed to realize that Ari was still standing there.

"Is Vacu really that bad?" Arielle asked.

"Yes," Rava said at the same time as Garrick said, "No."

"It's not bad," Garrick said.

"It's just... unstable."

"It's more than just unstable. It's cursed, I tell you," Rava said.

"And people with the Luxa-Vacu leans are the worst. In either direction. The lot of them aren't right in the head." Arielle remembered Gio, who had seemed perfectly sane to her. A bell rang, and Garrick said, "You should probably go back to your room. It's getting very late."

"Okay," Ari said.

"I'll see you tomorrow then." Rava and Garrick nodded, and Ari returned to her room, thinking about the conversation and what she was going to do about learning the rest of the spell forms. Dean Octavius had told her that she didn't need to learn all those spells, but she really did want to. She didn't like the feeling of being behind, and she didn't want to fail at something in front of the whole class. Most of all, she'd set the challenge to herself and didn't like not meeting her own expectations.

However, she didn't want to use up all her essences too. As she mused on it, she chewed the inside of her cheek. Perhaps there was a way to be more conservative with her mana practice. A not entirely lawful way.

"I don't know if that will work," she told herself as she pushed her room door open.

"Maybe I should ask Elric and–" The second she got the door all the way open, she screamed.