Chapter 26
Gnomes are well-known for their strong natural talent for myst-craft. Their elemental affinity can come in any combination and normally leans toward the higher levels. A Gnome’s Mystwell is inherently larger from the beginning but grows very little with use and training.
Day 164, Smeltesday
“NO, NO, NO!” howled Professor Neckar.
I stood in the center of a circular room filled floor-to-ceiling with tomes. A stained-glass skylight overhead depicted five moons, painting me in a vivid red under the glass Reva moon. Master Mystagogue Neckar stood in the glare of a waxing Secca.
The tanned Gnome stomped her foot, her pink dandelion-puff hair dancing as her sea-foam eyes sparked with aggression. “I’ve already told you! To pull upon your myst requires a sensation of pulling forces from within!”
“I-I’m sorry, ma’am, but I d-don’t know how,” I stammered.
The small woman stomped around me. “Well, what are you visualizing?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I’ve tried a vortex, a river, butterflies, eels. Roots pulling up, a waterfall flowing down. Hells, I’ve even tried mouths on my hands pulling it in, and nothing’s worked.”
“Fool boy,” she snapped. “Myst resides in all things. You can’t just picture random methods. First, you need to feel it. How does it appear to you? Some see threads of energy, others particles, others water vapor. That’s where the name ‘myst’ comes from. How do you see it?”
I blew out a frustrated breath. “I honestly have no clue.”
In a fraction of a moment, she backhanded me across the cheek. It stung, but I was more confused at how a three-and-a-half-foot woman could reach my face. I looked down to find her standing on a disk of hardened air.
“I swear, boy, you will be the death of me. Any other caster realizes what they are by mid-adolescence. You age like a human, so you should have been casting sparks by ten or eleven. But you had to be Myst-Blooded.” She stepped off the disk, creating a new one with each step until she reached the floor.
“What’s wrong with being Myst-Blooded, Master?”
“What?” she turned. “Oh, no, nothing, boy,” she said dismissively. “You are the first of your kind I’ve ever trained. And the second I’ve met.”
“Are we really that rare?”
“Difficult to answer. Myst-Blooded show up once out of every hundred thousand casters, and the frequency is mirrored in all species. Part of it is they go unaware of what they are until very set conditions are met.”
“And what would those conditions be?”
“An active threat to their life, blood must be spilled, stress levels must be elevated, and they must instinctively feel access to myst. Can you attest to that?” she asked, pinching her chin.
I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut. I tried to remember. “It’s hard to say. Blood was spilled,” I said, rubbing the scar on my palm. “And I was definitely under stress. There was a moment I was certain I was going to die. Part of me gave up, but another, more primal part rose up. It felt like I was in a dream. When my blood lit with fire, I was almost certain I was dreaming. And if I was, there would be no repercussions for maiming them.”
Neckar hurried back, snatching my hand like a crane spearing a fish. She held it palm-up, her gaze like a cat toying with feathers. “That sounds like you instinctively entered a trance state.”
“Like hypnosis?”
“Close. Athletes and artists call it ‘getting into the zone’. Have you ever gotten so engrossed in a project that the world fell away?”
“Yeah, kind of. When I’m designing gear, I forget everything else. That’s when I get my best ideas.”
“Precisely. It’s a self-induced trance. It’s also common to have semi-fugue state effects.” She tossed a book over her shoulder, and it landed on a nearby table, open to a particular page.
“What? Semi-fugue? Isn’t that from severe trauma?”
“Commonly, yes. A true fugue state is a defense mechanism. A semi-fugue could be thought of as partial amnesia.” She zipped around the room, thumbing through texts. “That’s why time seems to skip, and you don’t remember where your ideas come from.”
“So what does ‘the zone’ have to do with myst?”
“Oh,” she refocused on me. “My theory is that when you entered the trance, you entered a new state of awareness where you could grasp myst-craft instinctively. Or, you followed the feeling, and it resulted in access to your Mystwell.”
“So to learn how to use myst, I need to re-enter that trance?”
“Well, I wasn’t intending to link this to your training, but that would be a valid course of action.”
“How do you know all this?”
She fixed me with a peeved stare. “I swear you spanners never know the basics about us.”
“Spanners?”
“A term we Gnomes use for other Sophic Species. Do you know how long my people live on average?” I shook my head. “The term ‘bored to death’ is literal for us. Our lifespan is based on how long we can remain curious. So, to stay alive, we stay active. Some take up art, others adventuring. Then there are those like me who study the workings of the universe. Do you know what you can learn in eight hundred years?”
She stormed toward me, her tiny feet shaking the room. “Over my eight hundred years, I have mastered cooking in seven cultural styles. I can play any song on any woodwind or string instrument. I have Masters’ certificates in heart surgery, lung surgery, bone transplants. I have explored the psychology of killers and heroes so in-depth I could drive a Dwarf to turn against his clan, a man to murder his lover, or the most vain High Elf to suicide.”
She levitated to my eye level, grabbed my collar, and yanked me nose-to-nose. “I could drive even the most vain High Elf to suicide out of loathing for his own looks.” I gulped but didn’t dare move. As fast as her temper flared, it vanished. She turned away, throwing me aside.
When I next looked, she was standing over a scrying bowl. “We don’t belong in this realm,” her voice was hollow. “My people aren’t a native species. Our home was Kadys-Necor, the Realm of Dreams. A mass exodus, fleeing something so nightmarish that those who know refuse to pass it on. They only called it The Hungering.”
I tentatively walked toward her, unsure if even breathing was safe. “We’re dying out, actually,” her voice was calm, tinged with sadness.
I took a chance. “How?”
“We don’t reproduce like species here. In our home realm, parents would simply will a baby into existence. On this plane, it’s a guarded ritual that very few know. Soon, we’ll be little more than a myth.” She started and shook her head as if waking. When she turned and found me, she jumped again.
“Sorry, boy, but I’m ending class for the day.” She turned to walk away but stopped. “And if you tell a soul about this, I’ll use you as pier fuel,” she half-snarled. I nodded vigorously. As she beat a hasty retreat, something fell from her sleeve: a small ziplock baggie.
I picked it up. It held the dregs of a light-blue dust. I dipped a finger in and pressed a tiny amount to my tongue. The taste was vile, bitter, and caustic, like a chemical.
I pocketed the bag and left, raking my nails across my tongue to extinguish the taste. With my early release, I could catch Nel and Ferris. Maybe one of them knew what it was. I hurried out of the Mage wing, the Rooks Nest, and to my old general studies lecture hall. Thallos had informed me I would no longer follow standard classes. He was now my instructor for almost everything, which I dreaded. But it also meant I would only see my friends after classes or on Quenchendays.
I clasped my hands behind my back, rocking on my feet, playing a retro arcade game on my therra-node while I waited. While in the hospital, I had cracked the security for higher-level material and patch-worked together a backdoor to get unrestricted access to the LSN. With that, I jailbroke my therra, turning it from a Utility Model to what was known as an Unbreakable Model. I spent the following days catching up on news and playing games. As I waited, I played Metal Manticore.
I got absorbed, and as the world faded, I suddenly realized I was in ‘the zone’ Master Neckar had talked about. The moment I realized it, the trance shattered. The world snapped back as I lost my last life. Game Over. I threw a small fit, stomping and half-heartedly punching the wall.
“What the hell are you doing?” a voice asked. I dropped my display to find Nel and Ferris looking at me like I had lost my mind.
“I know your uncle was supposed to work you hard, but I didn’t think it would make you throw micro-fits in the hall while ditching class,” Ferris said with a smirk.
“I’m not ditching. The magic instructor cut class early after she blew a gasket. I’m pretty sure she went totally draconic on me for asking a generic question.”
“What was the question?” Nel asked as we walked.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets, my tail swishing in agitation. “I asked how she knew the medical stuff she was explaining. She was on the brink of breathing fire.”
“Well, rumor has it she does almost no teaching anymore,” came Ferris.
“Then what does she spend her time on?”
Nel piped in, “I’ve heard some second-year Blackened Crown students say there are rumors about her crazy breeding experiments.”
“So you heard a stranger muttering to another stranger about a rumor?” I gave her a look of disbelief. “That’s called apocryphal. I can trust those fifth-hand accounts about as much as I can expect The Dragon Titan, Wackarrdra, to fall from the sky and make me one of her godly children.”
“Whoa! Dude!” Ferris looked around in a panic. “No need to be xenist. You know the first mother of dragons is called Wackarrdra. Are you trying to pick a fight with every Dracose in the academy?”
I sighed. “No. Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to come across as such a skavy scumbag, but that Dracose from Mallrimor’s group did some serious damage, and I need to reign in my spite.”
“Damn right, you do,” Ferris commanded, tussling my hair. “Use that big brain and think before you speak.”
“Hey!” I said, fixing my hair. “You know I’m not people-smart. Everyone aside from you two and Rose thinks I’m either a weirdo or a crazy Hellspawn.”
Nel shoulder-checked me. “Well then, Mister Evil Mastermind, I guess you’ll just have to take over Anogwin and show them all how awesome you are.”
“Oh, yeah,” I scoffed. “I’ll take over the world with my gadgets and my smooth-talking charm. I’m so charming, I had the Master Mystagogue of the Blackened Crown almost turn me to mulch.”
“She couldn’t have been that angry,” Nel prodded.
“Angry? No. A better term would be… unhinged? No, deranged,” I concluded.
“Please tell me you’re over-exaggerating,” Ferris half-pleaded.
“Nope.” I stuffed my hands back in my pockets, about to explain, when I felt the baggy. “Actually, I have a question for you two.” I led them around a corner and pulled out the bag. “Any idea what this is?”
Ferris took it and waved the scent to his nose. He shook his head. “Can’t smell anything. No clue. Nel?” He passed it to her.
She dipped a finger in and licked it. Her response was almost identical to mine. She spat violently, trying to wipe off her tongue.
“That was my response,” I said, plucking the bag from her hand.
“I thought I saw you three sneaking off,” came a female voice. I looked up to find Rose jogging toward us. “Hey, Rose, we have a question for you.”
She leaped the last three feet, draping an arm over Nel and Ferris. “So, what’s the question?”
Her eyes fell upon the packet. Her face shifted through curiosity, realization, and a scowl before going deadpan. “Where did you find that?” her tone was scalpel-sharp.
“The Master of the Blackened Crown dropped it when she fled after going schizo-thermonuclear on me. Why? What is it?”
“That is something you should keep out of sight. I’d say throw it out, but all three of your prints are on it, aren’t they?” We numbly nodded. “Well,” she said, chewing her cheek, “the best advice I can give is to hide it. Take a cloth and wipe it down with an alcoholic solution to remove the prints. Then, Iver, you hide it in your room. If you’re found with that, there will be questions that will probably end with you kicked from the academy. Am I clear?”
I nodded vigorously.
“Good. Now get going and keep your wire quiet and lips zipped.” Without another word, she stormed away. Now I knew that whatever it was was most likely very illegal.
I made my way to my room to hide the bag before heading to meet Thallos for my course in crafting, administering, identifying, experiencing, and withstanding poisons.
