Flinging Rocks at Bureaucrats in a Magical Academy

He muttered a string of silent curses and tried to open the skill repository, but nothing happened. He focused harder, willing the system to respond. Open ‘Skill’, he thought. Gain access to ‘Skill’. Acknowledge meat vessel. Hello?

Still nothing.

He reached up and poked at the floating letters.

His finger went right through them.

What is this made of? Light?

Fabrisse frowned. “Okay. Maybe . . . maybe it needs ritual context.”

He squared his shoulders and began miming the closest thing he could think of: Thaumaturgic glyphcraft. It sort of made sense. The floating rectangles resembled sigil frames, and the system had already used words like ‘calibration’ and ‘orientation.’ He could work with that.

He planted his feet, cleared his throat, and focused on a mnemonic he remembered from an invocation called Seeking the Veiled Way. He whispered the chant:

“By spiral thought and silent flame,
let hidden pattern show its name . . .”

Then he flourished his hand with a sweeping spiral, splaying his fingers as he sketched imaginary glyphs into the air.

Nothing appeared.

Not even a speck of color? I should put some emotions into it.

He channeled the only emotion he’d been able to produce consistent color from: embarrassment.

The only thing visible was the rustle of his robes and the increasingly erratic rhythm of his feet. He added more motion, thinking perhaps the spellwork needed ‘more gesture.’ It probably looked ceremonial in his head. It looked very not ceremonial from the outside.

A faint blush of mottled pink leaked from the tips of his fingers. Finally, some color.

He was halfway through what may have been a sacred pirouette when Dubbie returned with two steaming mugs.

She stopped in the doorway.

“What,” she said, “are you doing.”

Fabrisse froze, arms held aloft like a marionette. “I was trying to interface with a conceptual menu using a thaumaturgic equivalence ritual—”

“You look like a monkey doing interpretive dance,” she said, stepping around him.

“It’s experimental.”

She set the mugs down and handed him one. “Right. Drink your tea.”

Fabrisse plopped down onto the nearest cushion with a sigh heavy enough to qualify as dramatic exhalation. He cradled the mug but didn’t drink.

“I still haven’t been able to channel another Thaumaturgic spell,” he muttered. “I’m sure I know the theory. I’ve studied it four times more than a normal apprentice.” Granted, it was because he had to retake them three times. “Statistically speaking, I should be a prodigy by now.”

Dubbie didn’t sit right away. She leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching him with that usual calm. With a slight tilt of her head, she replied, “I don’t think you should’ve gone to Thaumaturgic school, Fabri. You seem to have no faith in a discipline that requires faith.”

He opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it, and drank his tea instead.

Dubbie still didn’t move to sit. She just sipped her tea as she looked at him. After a moment, she asked, “What’s the mnemonic you were using?”

“Why?”

“I want to hear it.”

He rubbed his fingertips together, grounding through the familiar drag of skin against skin. It wasn’t obvious. He’d practiced making it subtle. But it helped. He then repeated the chant, a bit sheepishly.

“By spiral thought and silent flame,
Let hidden pattern show its name . . .”

She nodded. “Let me try that with Basic Seeking invocation.”

“I don’t think—”

“Move the way you remember,” she interrupted.

He stood and performed the sweeping spiral again, but he had unfortunately added the flair of someone very aware of being watched. “I don’t usually move like this,” he added as his fingers danced.

Dubbie watched quietly, then shook her head. “You’re adding too much fluff. Do they teach you that at school?”

“They teach us to add our own nuance.”

“Mm.” She set her mug down, stepped into the space he’d been standing, and adjusted her posture. Then, without preamble, she whispered the mnemonic under her breath and repeated the movement—not with flair, but with functional simplicity, the sort one might pick up from a Basics of Thaumistic Etiquette booklet in the local library.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then a soft blue flame kindled above her open palm.

It wavered and vanished a breath later.

Dubbie looked down at her hand, then shrugged and stepped back. “No veiled path for me, I guess.”

Fabrisse just stared.

“You—you’ve never even—how did you—?”

“It’s in those pamphlets they hand out during Guinoa Festivals,” she said, already picking her tea back up. “You’d know, if you came to things.”

He couldn’t stop staring at Dubbie. He could already picture her working in some quiet village outpost, helping with irrigation channels, lighting hearths with a snap of her fingers, healing little burns and cuts. The kind of mage people actually liked having around. Those kinds made good money.

Like Mom.

Except, like Mom, Dubbie had never cared much for money.

“You really should’ve gone to that school instead of me,” he muttered.

Dubbie took a long sip.

He sat forward, frowning into his tea like it had betrayed him. I can’t have a non-apprentice actually humiliating me like that. He set the mug down. “Alright. Once more.”

Dubbie raised an eyebrow. “Again?”

“I’m going to try it the way you did.”

He rose, rolled his shoulders, and took a steadying breath. “By spiral thought and silent flame,” he said again. “Let hidden pattern show its name!”

It was the simplest form, a slow circle of the forefinger over the heart, followed by a half-step back and a palm-raise. It was the same movement used in Thaumaturgic Initiation 1A, a basic rite taught to toddlers and first-years to poke at non-moving targets from a distance.

They taught it because it trained rhythm, restraint, and intent, the three things most apprentices lacked.

Instead, a soft tone pinged in his ears, and a rectangular glyph-panel snapped open with casual clarity:

Invocation matched with Query Type — [Retrieval].

[Inventory Accessed]
Storage slots: 4 / 10 filled
Contents:
— 1x Medarian River Pebble (Tagged: ‘definitely magical’)

— 1x Backup Teacup (Chipped)

— 1x Rune-Inked Paper

— 1x Rock Satchel (Extension)

[SYSTEM NOTE: Gesture recognized. Would you like to assign muscle memory shortcut?]

[Yes] [No]

[ADDITIONAL NOTE: Mnemonic phrases are not required to access indexed information.]

“It . . . it says I’ve accessed Inventory!” Fabrisse stared at the glyph in awe before turning to Dubbie, who looked decidedly puzzled.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

He pulled out a river pebble and a teacup from a robe pocket. “Look! I hid a teacup inside my robe just in case and it acknowledged it!” Fabrisse pointed to the space above his head with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for cultists or people who just discovered taxes were optional if you declared yourself legally undead. He then pulled out the rune-inked paper. He didn’t even know he’d left it in his robe. “It said ‘Inventory Accessed.’ That’s a thing!”

She stared at him. Then at the empty space he was pointing to.

“Fabri,” she said with deliberate slowness as if she was explaining the concept of the universe to a three-year-old, “what is an inventory? And why does your robe have so many pockets?”

The Academy-provided robes came with one inner pocket for quills and maybe a talisman, if you were lucky. Fabrisse, however, had . . . modified his. Technically, students weren’t allowed to alter their uniforms without faculty approval. Technically. But sometime last term, Fabrisse had found a discarded seamstitcher charm in the Salvage Wing’s lost-and-found drawer (wedged between a petrified sandwich and a copper serpent that mechanically twitched its scales whenever touched). After a few after-curfew experiments and the accidental fusing of his left sleeve to a desk, he’d managed to weave in four extra hidden compartments, each of which rune-lined and spatially expanded to accommodate his growing collection of smooth rocks, weird shells, expired potion vials, and other Important Scientific Samples™.

“It’s where this glyph stores stuff!” he said. “Apparently, I’ve got slots. I didn’t know I had slots.” Or what it meant, for that matter.

“Uh. . . Okay. What else does this imaginary menu say you’ve got?”

“Oh!” Fabrisse perked. “I was trying to access Skills earlier. I don’t know why I opened Inventory.”

“Maybe it’s because you’ve invoked a ‘seeking’ spell? If you want Skills, you should be invoking access to the things you can do. Try something like . . . I dunno. ‘By inner fire and sharpened will, let manifest what lies in skill.’”

He stared. “Did you just rhyme on the spot?”

“I read poetry,” she said modestly, then shrugged. “Try that one. But keep the motion simple. No twirls.”

He stared at his palm.

Did the words even matter?

The glyph earlier had been pretty clear: Mnemonic phrases are not required to access indexed information. He’d read it twice, just to be sure. And yet every invocation he’d ever been taught had come with a fancy couplet and theatrical hand motions, like a choir performance got lost and stumbled into a spellbook.

What if all of it was just . . . flair? Something the early Thaumaturges invented to impress committees? Maybe the ancient spellwrights were just bad at writing manuals and really into poetry.

Maybe he didn’t need words. Maybe all he needed was to mean it.

He brought his fingers together: forefinger to thumb, then palm splayed open over his sternum. This was the grounding posture they’d all been taught on their first day of Thaum Theory: Centering Breath and Resonance Prep. It wasn’t even a real spell, but there was a name for it anyway: Initial Channeling Stance, or, as most first-years called it, ‘The Panic Pose.’ Designed to help apprentices regulate emotional spillover before invoking real magic, it was half meditation, half desperate self-soothing.

Instead of [Skills], something else opened.

SPIRITUAL ALIGNMENT:

Status: UNSTABLE – Drifting resonance signature

Innate Affinities Detected:

???

Inert Affinities Detected:

???

[SYSTEM NOTE: If the spellcaster
’
s innate ability is a hybrid element, bypass the prerequisites needed to learn spells of that element.]

[ADDITIONAL NOTE: When trying to learn innate affinity spells, INT is boosted by 50%, leading to an easier intuitive understanding of the element. When trying to learn inert affinity spells, INT is penalized by 50%.]

[ADDITIONAL NOTE: A more intimate understanding of the aetheric mechanics of an element might turn it into a learnable affinity, or upgrade its affinity to innate.]

Fabrisse realized a concept he’d known from Thaumaturgy: Affinity.

If one’s affinity with an element was low, it would be burdensome for them to pick up spells of that element, no matter how much inner resonance or synaptic control they had. Even if they picked up spells of said elements, those spells were still prone to inexplicable stuttering or backlash due to the lack of fundamental understanding, and spellcasters often cost a lot of mental energy to sustain a spell they had a low affinity with. The glyph didn’t specifically tell him which of his elements were innate, and which were inert, but if he had to guess, they would be Stone and Water.

So if I learn Stone spells, I might be more likely to know what I have to do with my stones to register the pattern. If it's Water, I'll have no idea because the only things I've been able to get right with water have been to drink it and make my mother's plants drink it. I won't know where to channel my spell to, so I can't replicate the spell, which means I won't have learned anything.

His eyes narrowed at the last line.

Subtype: Embarrassment (Active)

First resonance detection timestamp: Age 13.

Most consistent emotional catalyst.

Color pattern: Amber / Mottled.

Channel Stability: Partially Reliable.

Well, at least I’m decent at making a joke out of myself.

But then, something else showed up.

Would you like to initiate the Affinity Path Discovery Protocol?
[Yes] [No] [Remind Me Later]

Oh. I can discover what I’m actually good at. Surely I’m good at something. No longer will I be a spectacular failure. No more lectures to Lorvan on my behalf. No more of that look from Lorvan. That scornful look. Never again.

He had better find something he could do well soon. His favorite scullery maid, Marla, had agreed to take him in as an extra pair of hands starting next semester. This would help him pay off a portion of the eventual tuition fee the Synod would charge him. However, jobs one could actually do with Thaumaturgy paid more than lesser work. After all, that was the point of studying magic: making life easier for yourself. Primarily by conjuring up piles of cash.

Disregarding the darkened sky outside and the possibility that he’d have to skip sleep to initiate whatever this ‘protocol’ was, he picked [Yes].

Another glyph appeared.

QUEST: “Writ of Elemental Echo”

Classification: Affinity Path Discovery Protocol
Objective Type: Calibration Quest – Tierless
Time Limit: 1 hour, 44 minutes (real-time countdown)
Location: External – Any non-urbanized open environment
Required Status: Awake, Unassisted, Semi-Grounded

Objective:

To discover the resonance path of your core Affinity, gather Imprint Traces of the elemental spectrum. Each Echo must be acquired and held for calibration analysis.

You must:

Touch and hold all five basic natural elements in your inventory.

Let them resonate long enough to generate a reaction with the Aether.

Keep the elements with you until the completion of the quest.

All objects must be personally gathered.

[SYSTEM NOTE: This Quest is mandatory.]

He barely read past “gather Echo-Traces” before spinning toward Dubbie, wild-eyed. “The glyph says I have to gather the five elements. I need help.”

[REMINDER: This interface is referred to as the System, not “glyph.” Terminology adherence ensures proper—]

Fabrisse swatted the notification away like a gnat. He wasn’t in the headspace to read reminders.

Dubbie didn’t look up from her tea. “Fabri. Do you know what time it is?”

He opened his mouth, but she held up a finger. “It’s late. I’ve got morning shrine duty, and your hallucination can wait until the sun exists again. Go to bed.”

“But—”

“Nope.”

“But it’s a quest!”

“And who gave it to you?”

“This glyph!”

[REMINDER: This interface is referred to as the System, not “glyph.” Terminology adherence ensures proper—]

Fabrisse swatted the reminder away again.

“Are you even listening to yourself . . .” Dubbie rubbed her forehead. “Sleep, Fabri. I’ll go with you in the morning.”

He paused, deflated. “Okay. Maybe it can wait—”

[TIME REMAINING: 1 hour, 43 minutes]

His voice dropped into a whisper of panic. “The elemental awaits.”

Dubbie cracked one eye open. “What?”

“I need to know what I’m good at!” he cried, scrambling to his feet. “This is how I find out if I’m, like, a fire person or a stone person or something profoundly stupid but secretly powerful. This is my Destiny Quest, Dubbie!”

He threw open the door and bolted into the moonlit night, pockets jangling with pebbles and a single chipped teacup.

Dubbie stared after him, mug still halfway to her lips.

A second passed. Then another.

She swore under her breath, grabbed her cloak from the hook, and marched after him into the cold.

“At least tell me exactly what you mean!” she shouted after his rapidly retreating silhouette.

“FIVE ELEMENTS!” he called back. “I’M GONNA HOLD THEM ALL!”