Somewhere Someplace

“And…nothing still” the foreigner remarked out loud, feinting a saddened mellow affect; “it appears that I cannot…ehm…use these cards…there is the…what is the word? ‘Numbness’? I have the numbness to these cards…so I guess to say that…I have failed this test” she added further, her palm lowering as she looked at the proctor.

The proctor, likewise, sighed; “How disappointing…” he began to respond, bluntly and coldly; “…especially after that trick you pulled off in the last test…oh yes, I saw the damage done…the remains left behind…and heard the account retold…so I had quite the expectations”.

The last remaining denizen stared on, silently, having no idea what any of this was about; she was simply glad deep down on the inside that…her turn was being delayed, her anxieties and nervousness overriding any impatience.

“Hmm…” the denizen began to interject, “…you are immune to spellcards? Huh, I’ve heard that most foreigners could use them…Far Westerners…even Far Easterners, sure they fizzle the cards a bunch but…they still respond to it…but…elves I’ve heard cannot use them though…you have elven blood in you by chance, miss?” she remarked and inquired, innocently.

The foreigner, staring, head-shook a no…or rather…shrugged a maybe?; “I come from the…ehm…New World colony…where the elves and the peoples…colive—coexist…I meant to say” she replied; “so…maybe, but I do not have the ears so…I do not know”.

The proctor, unamused, glared at the interjecting denizen; “It is not becoming to interrupt someone during their turn, so be silent please” he stated bluntly and authoritatively, the denizen immediately shutting it. He then returned his attention to the foreigner; “Now then, alien, this test, for you, was to demonstrate your ability to use spellcards at all, which you clearly cannot, thus yes…you have failed. But…you technically failed the last test, no? At least, as it was intended. Yet, here you stand…why?” he remarked before questioning, his eyes peering analytically and with interest.

The foreigner…tilted her head, now even more confused. Why was he dragging this out? She was instructed to cast the card, she could not cast it and was clearly without any demonstrated ability to cast it, therefore she had failed; it was very simple. She looked down at the card in her palm, then back the proctor, then back at the card, then the proctor.

“You have one extra full minute, otherwise I will fail you and move on” the proctor ordained, his auxiliaries looking at him…still rather confused themselves about this sudden…deviation from standard procedure but…went along with it, nevertheless.

She tilted her head even more…one extra minute…was not going to affect the outcome; she was incapable of casting this spell at all, which was endemic to the very code itself. It was clear by this point that…the proctor was interested in something else, but…he was being so…vague about it.

Ugh…if he wanted her to do something else, why could he not just simply tell her explicitly so that she could do whatever it was he wanted? Ugh…instead of forcing her to use her head and to actually…think—she already did far too much of that as was.

The denizen, seeing the confused foreigner’s struggle, psst at her, whose attention immediately shifted in a glaring stare. “…so uhm…what is it that you even did the last assessment? I heard him keep bringing that up…how did you pass it if you failed?” the denizen inquired rather quietly…ish, though the proctor had heard, he simply allowed this interjective discourse to take place.

The foreigner stared blankly for a few seconds; “…I ehm…I…simply…showed the point…” she finally replied…rather vaguely.

The denizen tilted her head…processing…before immediately figuring it out; “…maybe he wants you to…show…another point…then???” she replied…though with rather the uncertainty in her own conclusion.

Instantaneously, the foreigner’s head blanked as her mind realized the absolute obvious; « Ôch de corsâ: ut auteram pointam demonstre, ita me vult » her whispering breaths blurted out, the proctor smirking very faintly. Of course, show the locals her arcanity once and suddenly: curiosity for more. Ugh. He wanted her to show another point, and…quite frankly…fine…fine…if he wanted a demonstration, she will provide exactly that.

“Fine…” she began to say, “…if you want me to show the point, then I will show the point”. This task…however…was going to be far more complex than the one demonstrated prior and would require a more proper shift away from local terminologies and frameworks…back into her own.

She looked at the card, holding it in place with two fingers as she stared it down. Information…that was what this card was. The desk in front…was information. Her body, her cells, their molecular structures and atomic bonds, all those patterns and arrangements that made her…well…her…were all information. Everything in existence was information.

That certain something imbued deep down inside of her, the proctor, that staring denizen, all of them…integrated, connected, and synchronized with their minds and nerves…essence…was what she and those like her called it. Essence, the source of the arcane; essence, one of greatest information storage…things in all of known existence…albeit sometimes…being rather inconsistent and prone to unreliability.

Nevertheless, even a speck of essence, no matter how decayed or faded, no matter how corrupted or contaminated, no matter how detached from its source, still contained…most…of the information it had encoded and imprinted from its source and host—minus a few…many…dozen…exceptions, circumstances, caveats, and endless nuances…of course.

Regardless, because of that, the key to casting this card was in these very cards themselves. These cards, after all, had most likely been crafted and forged with some degree of arcanity, and thus had been imbued with exotic compounds synthesized by essence from essence.

Even in this very different and alien state of existence and material properties, even if the essence imbued was inert and functionally ‘dead’, it still retained aspects of its prior encoded information, including the essence’s pre-encoded or internalized understandings…and the foreigner…given her rather peculiar arcanity…could theoretically fetch it.

All she had to do was extract and resynthesize the essence imbued, assimilate it into her own ‘manafield’—or aura as she knew it as—in order to…hopefully…extract the relevant information, or at least…some of it.

Easier said than done; she was without her arcane conduit and her true mask, thus commanding her essence was going to require…yet again more…esoteric and inferential methods. Though, simply weaving her fingers alone was not going to be enough…too much complexity in the procedure…with too many sequences required.

With the card still between her two fingers as she held it to face, she began to back away from the desk…she was going to need the space and ample room. Staring at it, she closed her eyes; deep breath, deep breath, she inhaled and exhaled, concentrating and focusing, setting her mind to the right…state of being.

She opened her mask-obscured eyes as she began to bob and drift, slowly but surely, her legs and one free arm moved and swayed. Her fingers weaved as her arm flowed, her legs following along, all in coded synchrony.

A basic and small dance of sorts, seemingly, though just barely so. Much like with her weaving fingers, each movement, each gesture, each step taken, were all ‘sequences’ which conveyed commands, instructions, mandates, and such…similar to a spellcard’s coding, yet in the form of an arcane dance and ritual—one exclusive and unique to her and wherever from it was she had once hailed all those ages ago long lost to both memory and time.

There was no planning or coordination, only things that came naturally, like a language being spoken fluently—no heavy thoughts or cogitation…only words being said and understood…only actions being done.

Almost immediately as she began, her ignited cyanic eyes luminated, the sigil engraved becoming more potent as her mask’s lenses began to tint slightly cyan. Her essence was responding, strips and wisps of dusty cyanic radiance began to flow and weave from her spine, nerves, and being, dancing along to the tune being weaved, becoming less faint and more pronounced.

Strips of wisp-dusty essence flowed and streamed towards the card in hand, the cyanic wisps slowly stitching themselves into the card, trailing and following along the sigil engraved and all the glyphs contained within, causing a faint…yet prominent…exotic cyanic glow, one that slowly grew.

Her arcane quasi-dance shifted, as did her essence, priorities changing. At a moment only felt than known, she tossed the card into the air as her essence’s weaving threads snatched it, the card hovering in place as her right arm and hand joined the weaving dance’s tune, bewildered eyes staring on. More weaving threads of cyanic essence ignited into visibility, wisps with faint roots connected to her hidden aura…extended from out and began to weave and flow towards…the other cards…indeed, expanding its sample-size.

Suddenly, all other cards, besides the one stitched to very the air, had their synthetic coverings dissolved away into cyanic wisp-dusty radiance, as her weaving essence stitched and threaded itself into those other cards proper.

The foreigner guided the tune of the song being danced as her essence did all of the labor; things came naturally…to her, but she had no idea if she was doing things…correctly. She had no idea if her essence was doing things correctly or as intended. Such was the nature of this…rather esoteric method—there was no targeted precision, just naturalistic inferences and ‘feelings’.

Cyanic essence suddenly began to somewhat flare as the exposed cards were rapidly devoured and synthesized, the denizen only able to haplessly watch as her very own spellcards were being eaten before her very eyes, dissolving away.

The exoticisms imbued within these cards were slowly, but swiftly, stripped away, dissolving into wisps of dusty cyanic radiance, which streamed and flowed back to its source to be assimilated into her aura…her essence extracting and encoding only the relevant information, deleting and overriding the rest—hopefully.

The threads of wispy cyanic essence devoured and extracted as her primary card remained stitched in place to the very air, its primer sigil and code-glyphs glowing even more as her essence assimilated itself deeper within; she began to sweat as her weaving dance continued, her mind hyper-concentrated…each sequence so very carefully done as to avoid…miscommunication.

She still had no concrete or objective idea if this was working…yet something deep inside of her…felt as though it was; ironic…how abstract this entire process was.

Finally, the weaving threads of cyanic exoticism streamed and poofed away from the cards, left behind being only their despoiled and ravaged corpses, all the ‘mana’ within…thoroughly devoured; information extracted and processed…this sample-size should hopefully be enough, it felt like it was enough…vaguely at least.

Attrition and loss, even if such information had been perfectly stored did not mean it would be perfectly extracted; holes and gaps were inevitable.

She slowed in her flow before pausing her weaving dance; silence, her ever-faint panting breaths staring up at the card stitched in the air; her essence was doing something, she could tell.

Moments passed, nothing happening…more moments passed…more nothing…before suddenly…something. The card dropped as it rapidly dissolved away; her ignited eyes ‘flashed’ as they shifted in color along with her cyanic essence, both becoming a potent icy-blue, one that flared more than necessary, as her essence began to respond and act in absence of her dance-weaving sequences.

Her radiant essence became perhaps…too pronounced and visible as its snow-dusty wisps streamed and flowed, congregating into a patch of air; temperatures within and around rapidly collapsed…a freezing cold spewing and emanating from this concentrated patch, causing the entire system within this room to gradually fall and winter.

So cold it became, breaths turned to smoke, the bewildered denizen next and near…began to shiver away…as if she were suddenly being hugged by the Goddess of Winter’s own icy embrace.

Fifteen seconds, ten more seconds than intended, passed before the spell finally reached its ‘spell termination and deletion’ and ‘return to prior state’ command sequences.

Her ignited eyes dimmed as they returned to cyanic normalcy, her essence standing-down and returning to stand-by; the radiant dusty wisps of essence and its sparkly exoticism…withered and faded away…back into total obscurity, returning to her aura’s shadow. The air around was so much colder and more frigid, but was diffusing all around…stabilizing as temperatures regularized.

Silence, absolute silence.

The proctor stared, the denizen stared, the auxiliaries stared, all bewildered in their own ways, the proctor absolutely fascinated. Even the foreigner herself, panting with perhaps a slight sweat as she stood there, was surprised and shocked too…even if she could not really comprehend it.

The foreigner had no true definitive idea…whatsoever…that this was going to work; yet…it did…it actually worked, that stunt worked.

She had casted that spell…it was no trick or illusion, it was not her essence pretending to cast by mimicking an inference of the spell’s properties…no…it had actually casted the card. Its color…had even changed, she had no idea that hers could even do that.

Of course…her essence had fumbled that spell…greatly, but such was to be expected. Not only was this her essence’s first time responding to a spellcard…at all really…never mind one that was essentially encrypted to be as counter-intuitive as possible, but it also likely had to fill in gaps and holes, having to improvise and infer what it could not deduce and decode, leading to more errors in execution.

The foreigner exhaled a deep and satiated breath, promptly making way to return to her desk.

“Satisfied?” she interrogated bluntly, glaring at the proctor. She had went…perhaps…too far with this stunt of hers…again, exposing far more than these primitives ever needed to see, but…she could not help but feel smug and satisfied deep down on the inside, even if she could not comprehend it.

“…w-w-w-what…huh???…WHAT even…WAS that?! Magic?! Was that even…magic? I don’t even know what magic is…anymore!” so blurted out the bamboozled denizen, before her eyes looked at her…now despoiled spellcards; “…aww...hey!! My spellcards!! H-how am I going to even do this now!” she blurted out further, more shocked than angry.

The proctor clapped; “Certainly, certainly…what was that most indeed…hmm…” he remarked in inquiry as he began to make way to the foreigner, pondering and cogitating in mind. His auxiliaries were silent, for they had nothing to say or add…they were at a total loss.

The proctor halted at her desk, his fascinated eyes peering down at her other–now utterly despoiled–spellcard. “Hmm…” he mumbled out as he began to evaluate; “this card’s magic had been completely…stripped away from it…interesting…but how did that…give you the talent to respond to your other card itself…hmm…fascinating”.

He turned and looked at the denizen, still…staring with mourning eyes at her ravaged spellcards; “You…go fetch a new affinity card, I will test you just on that” he said to the denizen, before glaring back at the foreigner; “you…on the other side, I will pass you…personally, my aides being my witnesses to what I have seen…so, stay here” he stated.

The denizen…whimpering in mind…mellowly departed to do as instructed, the proctor promptly taking the foreigner’s document from her desk.

“Truthfully…you are a reminder of how little we still truly understand…of magic and the arcane…” he began to say, “should you continue to apply, I would be more than willing to personally recommend you for immediate selection…I am certain there is much we can learn from you as much as you can from us; would that we were still in older and more equal times…you would have surely arisen to become the master of your own school…” he remarked with slight lament…filling out her document, writing and signing, before providing that final, conclusive, stamp.

Just like that, she had passed both assessments…standing in opposition to her own presumptive predictions.

Fascinating, and here I almost thought you would simply accept the failing and move on, not risk the exposure

Yet, just like her, you certainly seem to like showing-off to the locals when able

But also like her, you just cannot admit it or even comprehend it

Though, you really are full of surprises, most certainly, a rarity indeed

Yet, still rather predicable, nevertheless