Hope

Irwyn woke up in the still unfamiliar bed. After his revelation about his writing ‘problem’ the conversation had winded down and Irwyn had left not long afterward. When returning to his room, he had found that literature had, in fact, been provided. Now he wondered whether infiltrating his room to leave behind books was a show of power or genuinely just Elizabeth not realising that someone might have an issue with this approach.

At least he finally had things to read which was how he had spent most of the previous day. The ‘Introduction to magic by Magelord Farmolian’ was certainly enlightening to read, if introductory. Although it gave him limited advice on how to actually improve his casting, it was full of context and subtext that only the most widespread ‘first textbook of any mage’ could provide.

Irwyn could almost see the foundation of arrogance and segregation between the mages and the ungifted written down in the praises and the promises of unmatched potential found within magic. It was no longer any wonder that no mages ever returned to Ebon Respite after whatever full education in City Black finished; from the very beginning of it they were being taught to stand above the mundane men and seek companionship only among equals. Irwyn had no doubt that sort of propagandistic messaging would only intensify in further magical education.

And behind that messaging Irwyn guessed the purpose: If he understood it correctly, the Duchy of Black aimed at concentrating the majority of their spellcasters in large population centers, such as City Black or apparently Abonisle. For what reason that was their goal, Irwyn did not know enough to guess, though it was clearly something long term considering 'Magelord Farmolian' had died over a century ago.

He glanced out of his window out of habit to gauge the time, though the position of the sun was obscured by the tall buildings all around, his guess was still somewhere not long past dawn though based on the dimness. He was about to delve into the book again, meaning to finish the last couple chapters, when a knock sounded on his door.

Not expecting any visitors, Irwyn got up, put on his new casual wear, and went to answer it it, making sure to feel for any magic behind the door. Though as he opened it that method has been once again proven at least unreliably, considering Elizabeth was already waiting there, beyond his magical perception. She wore the same black conservative dress, though to be fair it did not look that rich. Together with her wearing no jewelry she could be mistaken to be middle-class if Irwyn did not know better.

“Good morning!” she greeted enthusiastically before Irwyn could recover from the surprise.

“Good morning,” Irwyn replied almost reflexively. “Why are you here?”

“To inquire about our schedule?” she looked almost as confused as him.

“I have not made particular plans for today.”

“I see,” she nodded. “Then may I suggest the promised combat training?”

“I suppose there is no harm in that,” Irwyn lightly shrugged, still slightly unbalanced by the ambush. Was she waiting for him to wake up? Was he under constant surveilance?

“Then hold my hand and don’t resist the pull,” she nodded and stretched out an arm. Irwyn stared at her for a moment, slightly baffled as her eye glimmered with what appeared to be anticipation. After a moment he grasped her palm, noting the complete lack of even the trace of a callus, and felt magic shift. It was not quite Elizabeth’s magic though; if he had to guess, it was something subtle coming from the dress, though even this close he found it hard to tell. The next moment Irwyn felt his lungs compress, air pushed out of them accompanied by a surge of vertigo. When he blinked he was standing in an expansive rectangular hall. What a positively silly idea that he could have ever resisted that in the first place.

“I was not… under the impression…” Irwyn wheezed, out of breath from the transition. “...that tele…portation was this easy.”

“Well, it would be harder anywhere else,” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at his disarray, at a glance not affected at all. “But Abonisle has the second biggest temporal beacon outside the Duchy of Teal, that means any teleportation magic, as well as some other Time/Space spells, are much easier to power if they come from or target Abonisle. Local teleportation is easier here than even in City Black.”

“I suppose I never considered the option of teleporting around a city,” Irwyn took a deep breath to regain his composure. This had, in fact, been the first time he had been teleported at all; at least as far as he knew. Knowing it was seemingly this easy to achieve, even if only locally, was another worry he would have to consider.

“Her young ladyship understates the scarcity,” a new voice sounded, startling Irwyn. “Items capable of independent teleportation of persons are in extreme demand with very limited supply and usually require expensive maintenance after use. Most of teleportation is done by logistically inclined mages who earn a very respectable salary by doing so,” said the man and with a single glance Irwyn got the impression that he was more blades than a person. An amalgamation of thousand black edges of nothingness, sharpened to an impossible degree, keen enough to cut magic itself.

“I suppose I should not be surprised you would be so perceptive,” the man interrupted Irwyn’s thoughts. “You may call me Dervish. I will be instructing you and young ladyship in combat.”

“Irwyn,” he introduced himself. Dervish, for all his presence, looked like a beggar at second glance: His clothes seemed like over worn cheap linen and he did not carry the slightest trace of cosmetics. Even the man’s hair seemed barely kept.

“Yes. Before we begin, I am obligated to warn you that I can be quite harsh in my teaching,” Dervish nodded. “I would give you the opportunity to refuse.”

“As long as I do not die, I can take it,” Irwyn half jested, though in all seriousness he really needed proper training in combat and the harsher the training, the better it tended to stick.

“Very well. Then attack me with everything you have.”

“Is that really alright?” Irwyn glanced at Elizabeth who seemed to be contend just observing for now.

“You will not be able to scratch him,” she grinned confidently and stepped towards the side of the hall where she leaned against the wall. And Irwyn could well imagine that would be the case. He had received first-hand demonstration that there were people far beyond his reach when the shadow following Alira basically smote him with a casual gesture. Considering the situation, it was likely no coincidence that Elizabeth had access to this ‘trainer’ to the point she did not have to agree on sessions in advance; almost as if their schedules aligned.

So, without reservation, Irwyn struck. He had contemplated hiding some of his cards, however, in the end, he had opted to hold nothing back. Which was why he, without speaking a word, manifested a hundred glowing strings of saturated Starfire around himself, imbuing each with the intention to burn. And that intention had made a massive difference in difficulty: Without any intentions he could perhaps maintain thousands of such strings without issue, however, imbuing them cut the limit to a hundred-ish separate constructs before the strain became distracting. Irwyn needed not move an inch as he stared at Dervish, gave the man a second to brace or hesitate, and when he saw not a shadow of fear he commanded them all to attack.

Irwyn tried for a simple envelopment because even though he could micro-manage the individual strings to a great degree he had no better tactical insight than to attempt surrounding the man with the strings and then closing in. Dervish did not so much as blink as the magic got into position, still staring down at Irwyn. He waited for the strings to cover any escape route, until the largest gap between them was no bigger than an arm’s breadth, only then did Dervish finally speak.

“I can immediately see two mistakes,” the man stated. Then the next moment he was no longer surrounded, instead he was suddenly standing right next to the trap Irwyn had attempted to envelop him in. Irwyn had not perceived as much as a trace of any movement. “You wrongly assume that movement need be restricted by physical space. That is a fallacy that applies less and less each step a mage takes on the path to power,” then, before Irwyn could respond, Dervish swung his hand. The motion was incomprehensibly fast but Irwyn was certain he saw the shape of a black blade of some kind flash in his vision. And as soon as that motion finished, half of the strings under Irwyn’s controll just ceased to exist. Irwyn felt no loss of control, no dispersion of their magic or implosion of any kind. They simply were there and then they were not. “Your second mistake is that you fail to protect your offensive constructs themselves from being destroyed. Although void is not as volatile against Starfire as it would be against Light, they still mutually annihilate to a significant degree.”

“You also have no awareness of your surroundings,” Elizabeth half-whispered into his ear as she bopped him over the head with her palm, enveloped in a layer of simple magical flames. Though Irwyn did not burn, he did flinch at the sudden closeness as he had, in fact, not noticed her approach whatsoever. Nor had he, quite embarrassingly, even noticed the magic she held.

“That as well,” Dervish nodded. “Defend yourself. You have 3 seconds to prepare.”

Irwyn spent the first stumbling, still off-balance from Elizabeth’s ambush. When his mind caught up he immediately erected solid walls of Flame; Starfire not particularly effective in defending against Void magic. He managed to erect maybe 10 saturated layers, each imbued with the intention to defend before the assault began. The first blow seemingly glanced off of the outermost barrier, though Irwyn could not actually see through them; the thick flames obscured his vision completely. The first was followed by two more rapid strikes as Irwyn added more and more layers upon his defense. Then, with a single piercing blow all of them were struck through in an instant. It registered a moment later that the same applied to Irwyn’s torso, a stiletto-like black blade was piercing into his stomach.

He stumbled back, shocked, as his barriers all came apart at the seams and the ebony blade vanished. He held his breath in anticipation of the pain and blood… yet they never arrived. Irwyn blinked and there was no wound anymore, as if he had imagined it. The pain, although it did course through him, was far too short lived and much lesser than an actual wound would cause.

“That is a relatively solid defence, however, it can be easily bypassed by anyone who knows how to,” Dervish did not stop though just because Irwyn was once gain stunned. “You have also failed to defend against any attacks from below ground, obscured your own vision and remained completely immobile.”

“Was that an illusion?” Irwyn’s mind was stuck on something else than the criticism though. He was sure he had seen the blade pierce into him.

“No, it’s just the hall,” Elizabeth explained from behind him. “The Life enchantment in this chamber attempts to perpetually return you to whatever physical state you entered in. Small and thin wounds can ‘heal’ in an instant if inflicted carefully.”

“Of course even the hall is magical,” Irwyn let slip a mutter in his momentary mental disarray.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “Combat exercise without inflicting wounds is statistically a lot less effective and having a dedicated healer on stand-by would be inconvenient.”

“I think our definitions of inconvenience might not be on the same plane,” Irwyn chuckled incredulously at the absurdity of the answer. As if Elizabeth had not even considered that some people might not have access to anything healing related.

“You are certainly a gem in the rough,” Dervish interrupted their exchange. “Though lacking, you can be polished into competence. For your age you have a potent Vessel and great control, especially your lack of reliance on physical motion to direct casting. You have also relatively few bad habits that would actively hinder your battle potential. I have also noticed that you have been only performing singular imbuement, you should learn to imbue more than one intention at a time.”

“I have been attempting that for a while now,” Irwyn shook his head. “I do not think I have made any headway in that regard though.”

“It is not such a difficult technique,” Dervish said, his expression not changing. “Perhaps you can master it if given directions, though I will leave that for later. You should rest for now. It is better we do not risk overcasting in our first session.”

“My turn,” Elizabeth walked by him with a grin stretching across her lips, not really hiding her excitement. Irwyn did not protest, instead leaning against the wall at the side near where Elizabeth had, using that time to put his thoughts in order.

“By my side,

Ebony tide”

The fight started without any warning. The two were standing facing each other and the next moment Elizabeth waved her hand lightly, manifesting a literal wave of Voidflames. It was a gapless wall trying to swallow all in its path, leaving no avenue of escape. Several intentions were imbued into the spell, though they were not easy to read, overlapping and obscured. The spell left no obvious way through besides running around the rapidly advancing and wide magic.

Dervish did not seem bothered by this because through the middle of the wave he cut out a hole. And Irwyn realised his hands were crossed in front of his chest while two black blades hovered around him, one looked like a greatsword, except there was no hilt or guard, just a the blade itself, the same applied to the overly long rapier of some sort. Elizabeth’s magic tried to envelop the man immediately as he emerged, though the greatsword kept cutting him ways out at blurring speed, never letting any of the magic touch the man. In the meantime the other weapon surged to the offensive, stabbing straight at Elizabeth.

She did not even flinch as she parried the rapid strikes with quickly shifting ovals of black flame that she had summoned for that explicit purpose if Irwyn were to guess, all the while attempting to have the wave swallow Dervish whole.

But she was, quite obviously, losing. Slowly but surely Dervish cut his way out of the wave, seemingly exhausting some of its power by the constant damage as he trod at a casual pace, his hands still crossed before him while the rapier put Elizabeth increasingly on backfoot, speeding up ever so slightly after every already blurring strike.

She tried backing away but apparently struggled to move agilely while focusing on her magic as Dervish loomed closer and closer with his casual stroll. At one point she failed to deflect the rapier and had to desperately jump out of the way. Though she did manage to dodge, her opponent used that opportunity to disperse her black wave of magic with one sweeping strike of the greatsword. From there it was a matter of moments, Elizabeth going on a desperate but insufficient defense. It took seconds for Dervish to dismantle her defences as he came closer and closer. Just as his greatsword destroyed two of Elizabeth’s defensive constructs, creating what appeared to be the perfect opening for a finishing blow with the rapier, magic suddenly surged from right beneath his feet, just at a spot Elizabeth had been standing at the start of their match before she retreated this far. His blades, too far out of position were not able to intercept whatever magic Elizabeth was manifesting.

That was when the third blade appeared. It was a disk, or perhaps a chakram of some kind. Irwyn did not see how or where it appeared from, however, within the blink of an eye of seemingly not existing, it bit into Elizabeth’s trap, utterly breaking whatever magic that had been. The end came just a moment later as the rapier followed up on the earlier opening, striking Elizabeth in a gut for a split second before it withdrew, the wound healing before Irwyn could so much as see any red. Even the damn cloth mended. But that was probably just the dress rather then the hall, considering that he checked and did, in fact, have a needle-thin hole in his shirt where he had been struck earlier. So much for new clothes.

“You are aware I do not approve of suicidal gambits, your ladyship,” Dervish said, even his bland voice sounding distinctly unamused.

“I just wanted to show off a little, you know?” Elizabeth blushed slightly in embarrassment as she spoke.

“Showing off is an extremely efficient method of suicide, if that is your intention, your ladyship,” Dervish simply glared her down, radiating disapproval even with a perfect poker face.

“Most people need some excitement in life, Dervish,” she chided him, which seemed a bit strange to Irwyn.

“And that is your choice,” the man nodded. “Just be aware that ‘something exciting’ is one of the more common last acts among your peers.”

“I am not that fragile,” she almost huffed. And Irwyn wondered if she even knew what it was to actually fear death. If she had ever contemplated it in a corner with no escape. And the answer seemed obvious from her unbothered expression.

“Either way, now that we are done with the excitement, I believe I have an idea of an appropriate regiment for you Irwyn,” Dervish looked at him and Irwyn felt a slight chill run down his spine like a bad omen. “I believe it is best we get started while the morning is still young.”