Underkeeper

“I don’t think it’s normal.” Jori said, staring at Bernt’s arm. She was squatting on Bernt’s table, the result of one of his most recent stone shaping exercises. It was mostly round and level, which made it a great success as far as Bernt was concerned, even if the supporting legs weren’t all the same thickness yet. He could work on it later, maybe.

The imp poked a finger at his arm and leaned back, as if expecting it to burst into flame. Nothing happened.

Bernt frowned. “It’s fine, I think. It just activated my torch spell oddly.”

“I don’t know.” Jori grumbled. “It looks more like when I’m making fire. See?

She held up her clawed hand and hellfire pooled in her palm, radiating heat into the room.

As she summoned the flames, red streaks glowed dimly underneath her dusky gray skin, following some kind of complex pattern, different from his own. It did bear a striking resemblance to his own arm, though.

Bernt frowned. “That’s odd…”

It wasn’t quite the same either, though. Hers was only visible while she was casting.

“What does that mean?” Bernt asked, confused. ”Jori, are you a type of sorcerer? Do you know how your magic works?”

Jori shrugged. “It’s easy. I just let it go. It’s like moving my hand, or looking with my eyes. What’s a sorcerer?”

Bernt knew that Jori's fire was inherent to her. It was tied to what she was– not something he could learn. But… well, if Pollock was right, then maybe there was some kind of overlap here. He’d never really thought of it as sorcery, but it made sense.

The problem was that he didn’t really know much about it. It was considered a cruder, more primeval form of magic, used mostly by monstrous races with magic in their blood – dragons, kobolds, satyrs, changelings and things like that. As such, it was barely addressed at the Mages’ Academy. Why teach something that students couldn't use?

The only non-monstrous race Bernt knew of who were known to have sorcerers were the elves, but they were even more extreme than the guilds when it came to hoarding secrets. Their entire culture viewed human mages with contempt for reasons that Bernt didn’t really understand.

But that didn’t mean he was out of luck. Bernt was a guild member now. He could ask the guild librarian – just because the academy didn’t teach it, didn’t mean the guild didn’t have information on sorcery. Pollock himself had at least one text that talked about it. He’d have to go and borrow it from the old man as soon as he could. Right now, he would just have to experiment and learn as much as he could on his own.

He rummaged around in his bag, pulled out a bit of chalk, and drew a familiar rune circle on the ground. Then he cast the same spell one more time, holding his right hand directly over the circle. Once again, the spell activated prematurely, pouring fire out of his palm that organized itself into this new version of his torch spell before unraveling into a spell form over the rune circle.

Something was different here – wrong. The spellform in front of him and the one he’d been trying to cast were very different. Most strikingly, the perpetual flame was there in its entirety. The torch spell was woven into it, modifying its shape and power to shed more light, consume less mana and hover in the air.

Bernt felt a queasy sensation in the pit of his stomach. What did that mean for his other spells – ones that weren’t so simple or so readily compatible with this new investiture?

“What if using the hellfire turned your arm into a demon arm?!” Jori speculated, going off on a completely different line of thought. “Maybe you’re part immortal!”

Bernt shook his head distractedly. “I don’t think that’s what happened, Jori. Let me try something.”

He needed to see what happened if he tried to cast something else. Something that wasn’t as naturally compatible with his investiture’s spellform.

Focusing on one of the wonky table legs, Bernt reached in front of himself and sketched out a simple rune, visualizing the spellform for a spell he’d been getting a lot of practice in lately: his earth shaping cantrip.

Bernt’s arm warmed uncomfortably, but it didn’t work. He could sense that mana was being channeled out of his right hand, but nothing manifested. It dispersed into the air and the earth beneath him, merging with the power that naturally saturated the world all around.

Sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Uh. Jori. It didn’t work. The spell failed.”

Jori shrugged. “Are you casting it right?”

“Yes!” Bernt threw up his hands in frustration, but aborted the motion halfway through. Was he?

He turned back to Jori, thinking aloud. “No, you’re right. The spells are coming out wrong because the entire investiture activates as a spell as soon as I try to channel mana out through my hand. So… maybe Josie was on to something – I shouldn’t be using that hand for it. Should have been obvious, I’m too distracted by all this.”

Ed had also mentioned something back when he got his first investiture a couple of months ago. That, eventually, he’d have to consider where in his network he drew his mana from – the exit point. He doubted the old archmage had anything like this situation in mind, but it was worth trying, at least.

Bernt focused on his mana flow as he tried again. It circulated through the network normally, but this time, he stretched out his left hand, awkwardly sketching out the same central rune for the earth shaping cantrip.

The spellform took shape, clear to his senses. The perpetual flame wasn’t there. In fact, the spellform was exactly as it had been the day before, as if he only had his first investiture. Experimentally, Bernt cleared out the effect of the burning rain and activated it.

He felt the spell take hold of the stone, and let out a sigh of relief as he reached into the material of the table leg to remold it, thinning it down a bit and transferring the excess material down into the floor. It was difficult work – Bernt was never very good at stone shaping, but he’d been getting a lot better. That didn’t make it easy. In fact, it was straining his concentration. He released the spell, considering. He’d need to test his other spells and find out which he could cast from his right hand, and what their spellforms looked like.

It was going to be a long night.

“Do you think I could make my other hand do magic, too?” Jori said, holding up her left hand in front of her face as she examined it thoughtfully. “I wonder what it would take to grow that much.”

Bernt suppressed the sudden alarm he felt – she would be able to feel it through the bond. “It would take souls, Jori, lots of souls. Besides, you can’t afford to evolve any further – not any time soon, alright? I know the Solicitors don’t seem very threatening anymore, and Ed has been friendly, but they were very clear. They won’t let you stay if you evolve again.”

Jori sighed grumpily. “You get to grow. It’s not fair! Even Gegrenoth is more powerful than me. I can’t save anyone like this.”

Bernt blinked at her. What was she talking about? Jori was the one who would be in danger if she wasn’t careful.

“Who do you want to save?” he asked.

The imp didn’t answer, but he felt a gnawing sense of anger and fear radiate off of her. She curled into a ball next to the hearth, shut her eyes, and pretended to sleep.

Sighing to himself, Bernt stretched out his right hand and cast a fire dart over his rune circle. The thumb-thick ball of liquid flame unraveled, and he bent to examine it.

***

The next morning, Bernt went to work early in hopes of finding Ed before his shift on patrol started. He needed someone more experienced to talk to about this. Someone practical and knowledgeable.

When he got to Ed’s office, though, he found it empty. Frustrated, Bernt turned back to check the break room and almost ran into Dayle.

“Whoa there, what’s got you up in such a hurry?” The older underkeeper laughed genially. When he saw Bernt’s expression, his laugh died. “What’s the matter?”

Bernt ran a hand over his face. What did he look like? He hadn’t slept much.

“I got my second investiture last night… It didn’t really turn out well, I don’t think. Do you have a minute?”

Bernt caught Dayle up as they wandered back to the break room, rolling up the sleeve on his right arm to show him the glowing veins of his investiture. A few people were already there, drinking various hot beverages and exchanging gossip before shift change and watching the ward map that Kustov had installed there with the help of one of the military's abjurers to track incursions. Josie was sitting off to one side with Nirlig, and Jori and paused in her conversation to peer curiously at Bernt’s exposed arm as they sat down. He gave her a quick wave and turned back to Dayle.

“As far as I can tell, I can only cast pyromancy spells through the new investiture. They also activate as I’m casting, so I can’t modify the spellform. That’s especially bad because the spells all come out wrong. The spellform for the perpetual flame is always there in its entirety, it doesn’t just integrate a few compatible properties like it should. So, all of my fire spells are really just modified perpetual flame spells.”

Dayle frowned, scratching at the stubble on his chin in thought. “That’s annoying. You'll need to be careful, conjuring something like that. Perpetual flames are dangerous, you know? Even those Illurian types are pretty choosy about which bits they leave in their spells. You don't go casting it at any mages, you hear? Not any you're not happy to have on your conscience, that is. What about everything else?”

Bernt wasn't entirely sure what to make of that, but he nodded. “I can cast almost normally it if I channel through my other hand to make the spellform. But it’s as if I didn’t have the second investiture at all. Worse, actually. As far as I can tell, the spells are weaker. I can’t channel mana from that part of the network for regular spells anymore. It’s as if I were missing the arm entirely.”

Dayle winced. “That's a real pickle. If the investiture didn’t integrate right with your mana network, then how’re you gonna fuse it into a nice, clean augmentation at the end?”

Bernt frowned. “Yeah. But right now I’m worried about just casting spells properly at all. We have a job to do here, but I don’t know if I can fight like this.”

Daily waggled his hand in a so-so gesture. “You'll get used to it. I mean, perpetual flames can do some incredible damage, if you're throwing them at the right targets. They can burn ambient mana, not just yours, so they don't go out on their own – you have to cancel the spell. You can do pretty horrible things to enemy mages or anyone wearing enchanted armor, too, because it'll feed on their mana. Won't do more than a normal bit of fire to a regular person, though. Still, I'd practice your fire-controlling cantrip with your other hand if I was you first, just in case. Don’t want any surprises when it comes time to put the fire out again.”

“Can you cast the spell by itself?” Josie’s voice asked from just behind him. Bernt jumped in his seat and turned to find the warlock standing there, eyes glued to his now oddly veined hand.

“Which spell?” he asked.

“The one in your arm, obviously. Jori said it looks kind of like hers. You can feel it in there, right? It stands to reason that you’d be able to cast it the same way.”

Bernt squinted at her skeptically, but then held out his hand and pushed a small amount of mana out, unformed. It pooled there as liquid white plasma that gave off a tiny, white flame. He could feel it pulling on the mana all around, growing slowly as it flickered there. It looked different than Pollock's version and he realized that the mana hadn't just shaped itself according to his new investiture. Once formed, the spell had also incorporated elements of his burning rain investiture to give it this liquid aspect.

With a thought, he extinguished it again, canceling the effect. It was an interesting application of his new channels – casting it instantly like that – but it was a small consolation.

“That’s good, right?” Josie asked. “You can do a lot with something like that, and you can modify it however you want. That’s a lot better than what I can do. Think of all the possibilities!”

Bernt blinked at her, wrong-footed a bit by her enthusiasm. Was she trying to cheer him up?

“Yeah. I guess there are some possibilities,” he allowed. “I’ll experiment around with it some more tonight.” He managed a small smile, though he didn’t really feel it. “Magister Pollock told me he’d help me develop myself further as well. He thinks I’m going to be a real wizard.”

Dayle nodded encouragingly, though Bernt could see the worry in his eyes. “Sure, yeah. Old Pollock’s probably the most powerful pyromancer I’ve ever heard of, and he barely got past his first augmentation. Four investitures I think, maybe five.”

Bernt stood up, swallowing down his worries. Even someone like Pollock had stalled eventually, and Bernt couldn't imagine the old man had done anything this drastic on his second investiture. “Right. Enough gloating about my inevitable rise to greatness, I’ve got patrol duty to get to.”