Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

“No’ at my level,” Marissa denied. “I’ve ‘eard some Masters can, but I’m a long way off from that.”

That was interesting. I hadn’t heard of higher levels of attunements giving access to more types of mana. I’d have to research that more later.

I really needed to do more research on higher levels of attunements in general, especially after that conversation with Vellum. If being a Carnelian Mage was going to be necessary for manufacturing anything useful, I needed to make that a high priority goal.

Patrick pointed at my glove. “Couldn’t you make an ice gauntlet or something?”

I chewed my bottom lip, considering. “I’d need help from you or Sera, but yeah, it’s possible. Not sure if the gauntlet is the best option. We seem to need defense more than offense.”

“Could you make us shield sigils that use ice magic?” Sera asked.

“Maybe. Not sure how exactly that’d work. I think I’d have to find a rune that detects fire mana or just generally intensive heat to turn the shield on, then trigger an ice barrier. The problem is that ice is harmful to us; that’s how I nearly killed myself.”

I took a moment to think about it. “If I could make the ice barrier show up outside of our normal shield as a first line of defense, theoretically our normal shields should protect us against the cold…but I’m not sure the shield sigil would even activate. Maybe I could link them so that the normal shield always activates when the ice one does…”

“Could you make the ice shield a second function of the same item, like how your gauntlet can do two things?” Sera offered.

“That’s not a bad idea, but I’m not sure our normal sigils have the mana capacity to handle a second function. I might have to make new ones from scratch, probably out of a higher capacity material… but that’s not a bad idea. I could make the normal shields stronger, too, that way. It’s just expensive.” I nodded anyway. “I’ll look into it.”

“I can’t learn ice spells,” Patrick mused, “but if it’s a flying monster, maybe I could learn some air magic.” He turned to Sera. “Any chance you could teach me that ice storm thing? I mean, I couldn’t cast the spell itself, but if it’s half air and half ice, I could probably learn the air part. Maybe I could make a lightning storm by modifying it or something.”

She shook her head. “I can try to teach it to you, but I don’t know if you could learn it. I’m directly invoking one of the creatures I have a pact with; it’s not the same kind of spell that Elementalists use.”

“Oh. Shame.” Patrick frowned, and then shook it off. “I’m sure I can find something.”

Sera tilted her head to the side. “We could still try it… Let’s talk about it later. Besides that, I thought you were training with Meltlake? Wouldn’t she be able to teach you better air spells?”

That was news to me. Sera seemed to be keeping better track of Patrick than I was. Not surprising, really… I was pretty bad at keeping up with what my friends were doing. I’d need to improve on that.

“Uh, she’s training me,” Patrick confirmed, “but Meltlake doesn’t really teach air spells.” He looked sheepish. “Or lightning spells. You know how a lot of people don’t live up to their name? Yeah,” his voice cracked as he drew out the word, “she’s not one of those people. On the plus side, I know lots of ways to light things on fire.”

That got some snickers from the group, but it also got me curious. “Has she given you any hints on how she does the big stuff? Like, you know, whole lakes?”

He shook his head. “She’s been pretty tight lipped on that. I’ve heard some rumors from the other students, though.”

“What sorts of rumors?” I asked.

“Well, the most popular one is that she’s ascended.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Seriously? I know Meltlake is impressive, she’s probably one of the most powerful people here, but… Are Ascended Attunements even real?”

He shrugged. “Some people say that a parent or a friend saw her duel, and that her hand was glowing gold when she cast that spell. I know, I know, that could be anything, but the whole ‘Ascended Attunements glow gold’ thing is a popular story.”

It wasn’t impossible; there were numerous witnesses to her duel and they agreed her power was on an unbelievable scale. Still, just being an Emerald Elementalist might have been sufficient to do what she had. There were, supposedly, only a dozen or so Emeralds in the world. Their capabilities weren’t broadly known.

I decided to move on. “Okay, anyone else have suggestions for next time?”

Marissa looked nervous, so I turned to her. “Marissa, what’s on your mind?”

She startled, glancing from side to side. “Well, I don’t mean t’be rude, but… M’lady Sera, you’re a Summoner, yes?”

We all knew the answer, but Sera nodded. “Sure?” she replied.

“Well, I don’t know much about yer attunement, so I don’t aim ta presume. But I didn’t see you actually… summon any monsters?”

Sera shrank. “I, uh, can’t actually do that just yet. I’ve only made one pact, and I don’t have enough mana to summon it. Not even a fragment.”

That made sense, but it made me suspicious. What kind of thing did she make that pact with? The ice theme was obvious. I’d initially assumed she’d found some sort of low-level ice elemental. Could she have found a strong one? Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had an atypical tower adventure.

“Oh, forgive me, I didn’t mean—”

Sera waved her apology away. “No problem, Mara. It was a fair question. I’ll practice. I doubt I’ll manage a summoning in ten weeks, but maybe by the last test.”

In spite of brushing the comment off, I could tell Sera looked pretty bothered by her admission. I leaned into her. “Don’t stress about it. At least you have an attunement that works in combat. And that ice storm spell is the strongest thing we have.”

She nodded without answering.

I looked back at the others. “Okay. Anything else? Actually, maybe you can all give me a wish list with the types of magical items you’d be interested in? I can’t promise anything soon; I’m pretty much out of money. But maybe I can scrape some things together over time. I’d like to get each of us at least one new item before we hit the real tower.”

Patrick and Marissa looked introspective. Sera, on the other hand, folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at me.

“You already owe me a gauntlet,” she reminded me.

“Oh. Right.” I grabbed one of the papers we’d used and wrote that down on the blank side. “Do you want it to be any different from mine?”

She considered. “You can make them use any type of mana, right?”

“As long as someone else can provide the mana to power it, sure.”

She glanced at Patrick. “Right now, I’m limited to only throwing ice. That makes me a lot less versatile than Patrick. But if Patrick is willing to help charge a gauntlet for me…”

I nodded at her logic. “You could be throwing fire or lightning, even though your bound monster only gives you ice. Yeah, that makes sense. We’d need it to recharge itself, though, since you wouldn’t be able to power it with your own mana.”

She nodded. “You willing to help us with this, Patrick?”

He blinked. “Uh, yeah, of course, Sera. Whatever you need.”

I looked at him quizzically. He didn’t usually sound that nervous.

“Okay, great,” I said, dismissing it. “That can go on my list… after the ice shields.”

Sera shot me a withering glance, but I put my hands up in a warding gesture. “The gauntlet is a good idea, but it’s not practical for the immediate future. We need the ice shields more for the next test or two.”