Primal Wizardry - A Magic School Progression Fantasy

[A picture of a wizard looking at a cut perplexed with a large question mark over his head.]

H is for healing, the magic divine, its workings complex beyond wizardry design.

-Sally Rider’s ABCs of Magic

—

“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” a freshly clothed Zale said as she stepped out of the free-standing door to her room, and back into the abandoned dining hall well away from the stench.

“Sorry again,” Kole said, for at least the tense time.

“It’s…” Zale began, but stopped herself from saying ‘fine.’ “Let’s just agree that this didn’t happen.”

She gave her cousin a stern look at that.

“What didn’t happen?” Rakin asked.

“The throwing up,” Amara said, less than helpfully, causing everyone, to laugh lightly.

“So, what did you find?” Kole asked Rakin, ready for a change in topic.

Whether it was from his dwarven heritage or monk training, Rakin had been largely unaffected by the stench and had looked through the room for any clues as to what had occurred.

He’d found that not all the shell had been carapace, some of it had been armor, identical in color to the shell, and crafted to fit it down to every contour. The creatures also had swords, daggers, bows, and shields, enough to equip every head they found with one of each. There had been six heads in all.

Rakin couldn’t explain how, but he sensed some sort of resonance in the armor with the Font of Earth. Something he explained happened with enchanted items that drew upon the Font, but Zale’s Willsight assured them that the weapons bore no such thing.

The weapons had been unlike any they’d ever seen—which didn’t mean much for Doug, Kole, Rakin, or Amara, but was saying something when coming from Zale.

“These swords are designed for jabbing between those shields,” Zale said, lifting a weapon and making quick practice jabs.

Kole looked at the shields. They were similar to tower shields but had a gentle concave curve on the left side.

“If they held them together, they could form a tight wall and pin cushion anyone that got close.”

“Wouldn’t the ant people be the pin cushion in that situation?” Rakin asked. “Since all the ‘pins’ are sticking out of them?”

“Yeah,” Kole agreed. “It doesn’t really work. The people getting stabbed would be poked once in one spot by a single soldier ant, while the pin cushion implies they are being stabbed from all over.”

“Hedgehog?” Doug suggested.

“That’s it!” Rakin said, clapping his hands.

“Are you done?” Zale asked, staring reproachfully at the three boys. Amara was fiddling with some device and ignoring the interplay.

None of them replied, and Rakin gave a gesture for her to continue.

“So kind,” she said, dryly. “I was going to say, I’ve never seen weapons like this before, but I’ve heard of their use. The Midlian Empire employed tactics like this in their regular legions. They had their conscripts, who were given shovels and thrown into the dragon fire as fodder, their elite units designed around powerful magic users or weapons, and then their legions. The legions were the professional army of trained soldiers, all trained to function as interchangeable parts. Their griffin riding flame spitting battle mages might have gotten all the glory, but the legions were the ones that did most of the real work when it came to conquering their neighbors.”

“Why don’t people use these tactics anymore?” Kole asked.

“The tactics are terrible against monsters. Since everyone settled on Basin, there hasn’t exactly been a lack of space or resources. Legions are bad at fighting monsters, dragons, and crazy blood-crazed sorcerers. Those were the main threats after settling, and modern problems required modern solutions.”

He’d heard of the Midlian legions, though he’d never given them much thought. His own home had once been known for its military might before the Flood, with elite units called squares built around powerful mages, with rank-and-file soldiers with their own magical talent used to fill out the ranks and compliment the magical core.

They also had their knights, the most talented warriors of the city, granted magic through the Bonding of the ensouled blades of powerful sword mages of the past.

While Illandrios had never been a city to conquer others during their time above water, they’d had their fair share of clashes with the other cities around them—or so Kole’s people had rediscovered after finding the histories lost to them when they rejoined the world.

Their squares had been meant to deal with the more mundane armies while the knights supported their arch mages to deal with the elite threats of their foes.

“It looks like they ate each other,” Rakin said, interrupting Kole’s reflection. He’d been examining one of the fragments of chitin as Zale spoke about the weapons. At the words, Kole felt his gorge rise once more.

“They were trapped in that room,” he continued, now that he’d gained the attention of the room. “The stone walls are covered in fresh scratches. I think they were trapped and resorted to eatin each other. But the door was open when we got there.”

“What about the door?” Kole asked, picking up on the specific mention of the walls.

“Aye, that’s what I was about to mention. The door was fine.”

“Was the whole wall scratched, or was there an unmarred section opposite the door?” Kole asked getting an idea of what might have happened.

“No…” Rakin said, not following. “The walls were scratched everywhere. There was one really deep attempt.”

“I saw the door disappear right as I entered the room,” Kole explained. “It didn’t have any gore splatter on it like the rest of the room. That could be explained by magic, but if the wall behind it was damaged as well, that means the door wasn’t there when they tried to escape and eventually killed each other. Either door.”

“The Dahn trapped them!” Zale shouted out as she put the pieces together.

“The signal shifted just as you ran into the room,” Amara added.

“Why did it let them in at all?” Rakin asked.

“Who’s to say it ‘let’ them do anything?” Kole asked, putting together a theory even as he spoke. “We know incursions have been happening. The Dahn obviously doesn’t want to endanger its students. So far, the dangerous ones have all happened in isolated areas like this. The scalequines appear in the halls but are quickly herded outside. Those fish appeared in a classroom, but it was empty. The only other dangerous ones were the ice people and the rat goblins.”

“Goblin-rats,” Doug, Rakin, Zale, and Amara corrected in unison.

“The goblin-rats appeared right by you though,” Zale pointed out after Kole didn’t react to the correction.

“That was the first one though, wasn’t it? And it occurred in an area known to be vulnerable to incursions from outsiders. Maybe that was the first and they’ve directed them away from students ever since.”

“What about those snake-hyenas?” Doug asked.

Zale nodded enthusiastically, “Those all appeared in places they could be dealt with quickly. Either near adventuring parties on patrol, or in rooms where they are stuck, but visible.”

“And,” Kole said, growing confident in the theory, “We only keep finding them because we are searching for Amara’s sister—who is trapped wherever these things are from. There must be a constant opening and closing of doors to this place all over the Dahn. That’s why our tracking is so erratic.”

“That would explain it,” Amara said.

“So, is the Dahn trying to direct us away from these things, or towards them?” Kole asked.

No one had an answer. Kole was leaning towards the latter, seeing as they’d not died facing anything.

“So… do we tell anyone about this?” Kole asked instead.

Everyone looked at Zale, who began to chew her lip.

“Well…” she began, dithering. “The Dahn seems to have it pretty under control. And if we told anyone, they’d probably stop us from coming back out here.”

“So that’s a no,” Rakin answered for her.

“What’s the plan then?” Kole asked. “Do we keep running around like maniacs trying to find another door, or wait to see if this one reopens?”

Rakin sniffed the air, testing it.

“I’d rather not stick around here,” he said, despite having handled the stench the best out of all of them. “How do we know the door will open here again?”

Once more Kole thought he was going to throw up at just the mention of that horrible stink.

“It opened here at least twice,” Kole said. “Once when the soldier ants got stuck, and now. It seems a safe bet that it might happen again.”

“Let’s set the tracker up here to alert us if the door reappears, linked to signal devices I made earlier,” Amara suggested.

“How will we get back before it closes though?” Doug asked.

“My door?” Zale suggested, more as a question than as a plan. “I can leave it here, and if the alert goes off, we can meet at my rooms, and travel out into here.”

“What if something tried to break through into your house?” Kole asked, earning a laugh from Zale.

“I’d like to see something try to get in. Mom told me some stories, and I’m confident nothing short of a powerful magic user could get in.”

“How long will it take to get the alert set up?” Kole asked turning to Amara.

“I already did it,” she said, confused by the question.

“What? When?” Kole and Zale asked in sync.

“I started like, half an hour ago? While you were changing. Then finished during some argument about spikey ant people? It seemed simple enough.”

She produced her new device, which looked like the larger tracking disc and signaling disk had been glued together crudely.

“It’ll only work once,” Amara said as if that were some great failing.

“But,” she added hastily as if an apology. “I can make a better one later.”

“I think this will do nicely,” Zale said, slapping Amara on the shoulder reassuringly, but the contact only confused her.

Before leaving the abandoned section of the Dahn, they hid the door in the runed refrigerator, and using tables and chairs set up barricades in the halls leading to the room the door appeared.

When they opened the door to the refrigerator, the runes were still active, though no food remained. Judging that the cold of one of these rooms is what allowed the home of the ice people to connect to the Dahn, Amara disabled the runes before they left.

“I thought ye reopen the door for three days after opening it,” Rakin said, after Zale had done just that.

“That’s only if I open it from outside the Dahn. Internal travel I can do more frequently.”

“Why don’t we just carry the rod around then and open it to here when the alarm goes off?” Kole asked.

Zale chewed on her lip in thought.

“I don’t know if I will be able to reopen it to here if we close it,” she said finally. “I can’t open the door to anywhere in the Dahn, just a few places I’m familiar with.”

They filed out into Zale’s home, and they all made themselves comfortable on the couches in the central library chamber.

Doug looked around wide-eyed at the place.

“You live here?” Doug asked, amazed at the rich room.

“Oh…” Zale said uncomfortably, looking around. “Did no one tell him?”

“Tell me what?”

“Zale’s ma is the chancellor of the school,” Rakin as he walked into the kitchen to help himself to something to eat.

“Oh! Does this mean we can tell him that Zale’s uncle is Tal of Storms?” Amara asked eagerly. “I hate keeping secrets.”

Rakin let out a groan, while Kole rubbed his face and Zale’s ever-present smile grew wide and uncertain.

Amara picked up that she’d done something wrong, as she looked to all three of them. She covered her mouth as a look of horror began to take hold on her face.

“Yeap,” Zale said quickly, forcing cheer. “that’s exactly what it means.”

Doug took the news of Tallen’s identity well. As it turned out, his demonkin tribe had become the adopted home of Eric of Hollow Peak after the Last Dragon War. Eric had been the first to break free of the Hollow Peak and discovered the world hadn’t completely flooded. During the Last Dragon War, he’d had a run-in with Tal and Zale, and Rakin’s parents. Doug hadn’t known Tallen was Tal, but he’d been raised on stories of the mage and knew all about him.

He was more surprised to learn Zale’s mother’s role.

“She doesn’t strike me as the administrative type,” he said after settling down over the Tal revelation.

“She’s not,” Zale said, “She has staff for that.”

After they ate, Zale looked over to Amara who seemed to be fidgeting more than usual

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why?” Amara answered as she tapped her fingers on the table.

“She wants to go work on the permanent tracker,” Kole said.

“Oh, yes.” Amara agreed. “Can I go now?”

Once they’d had a plan for finding her sister that not only didn’t involve running around like rabid moles, but she’d grown, which meant that instead of her mental planning jumping around from project to project, it obsessed over one.

“Sure,” Zale said, pointing to the door that had led to the kitchen. “That will take you to the room we met for study group.”

Amara nodded, and excused herself, quickly running out the door. After she was gone, the rest excused themselves to go about their own plans. Kole for one had had enough excitement for the day and was looking forward to digging into his work. He had a lot to work on before that door opened again.