Several arcane workings activated at once.

First and foremost, a teleportation spell reached out and tried to grab Saffra—no doubt Osmian’s attempt to send her away. Vivi was near certain the spell would have bounced impotently off the defensive spells she had placed on her apprentice, but, on principle, she squashed the magic herself.

Secondly, she appeared on the flat top of an unfamiliar mountain range, gazing out across flowing green plains. For a moment, she was startled: unwanted magic had affected her? How else could she have appeared in a different location if not through a teleportation spell? But then she identified a shimmering quality to the landscape, and she understood.

Clever—and carefully constructed. Osmian had primed her to expect teleportation when he’d said he ‘would not be taking Saffra with them’. But he hadn’t taken them anywhere. Rather, Vivi had shot down his attempted dismissal of Saffra, and so neither of them had moved an inch. Everything around them had changed.

“Did you [Dispel] that?” Osmian asked, shocked. “Where was the incantation?”

Vivi summoned her staff, stepped up to the ghost, and smacked him on the head. It wasn’t the gentle, admonishing tap she sometimes gave to Saffra. Wood cracked against ghostly flesh, and the man reeled back, clutching at the spot.

“Don’t use magic on my apprentice without asking,” Vivi admonished flatly.

She could have taken far more offense at something that could easily be construed as magical assault. Especially when she didn’t know where Osmian had been trying to send her. The only reason she wasn’t genuinely mad was because she knew there was no malice behind his actions.

“You struck me!” Osmian gaped at her, rubbing at the top of his head.

“As far as I’m concerned, that was a moderated response.”

“No. You struck me. How? This form is incorporeal! What is that staff made of?”

Vivi frowned at him. That was what he was focusing on?

He seemed to realize the same thing, straightening and clearing his throat. “I was merely sending her back to the library,” he said, looking down his nose at her. “As I said, a child has no place in these trials. She’ll only be a distraction.”

“That’s for me to decide.” She almost left it at that, but chose to give the more practical explanation. “She was expelled from the Institute, so I won’t leave her on her own. Something might happen while I’m occupied.”

Osmian blinked in surprise. “She was expelled?”

Saffra’s cheeks colored, but rather than shriveling in on herself, she stuck her chin up and demanded, “Yeah, what about it?”

“What for?” Osmian asked. There was surprisingly no condemnation in his tone, just curiosity.

“That’s none of your business, is it?” Saffra shot back. She was not, apparently, intimidated by legendary figures of history…or at least not when they had annoyed her.

Osmian frowned. “Mind your tone, girl.” His annoyance turned to Vivi. “Are all the youth so disrespectful, or is this a failure of your own? What have you been teaching her?”

Vivi suppressed a sigh. Crotchety old men would be the same everywhere, it seemed. She had great respect for Osmian simply from what she knew about him through the game’s lore, but he wasn’t especially endearing in person.

She brought the topic back to what mattered. “Don’t cast spells on someone’s apprentice without permission. What are they teaching elders

, if they think that’s acceptable?”

Osmian, at least, seemed somewhat embarrassed by her accusation, but indignation was the more prominent emotion. “I hardly assaulted her. I was merely sending her away.”

“Would you have cared, if someone cast foreign magic on someone under your protection?”

He opened his mouth, about to happily contradict her point, then grimaced and closed it. “Fine, yes, I understand. But there was no ill intent in my actions.”

She gave him a pointed look. “If there were, I wouldn’t have just smacked you with my staff.”

He rubbed the spot at the reminder. Strangely, he still didn’t seem upset by the physical assault. Instead, he rolled his jaw side to side before guessing, “Wraithbone.”

“What?”

“The material of your staff. The appearance doesn’t match, but only so many substances can interact naturally with the incorporeal. Am I correct?”

It was revealing of his character, Vivi thought with amusement, that he’d immediately dismissed the prior conversation and returned to the curiosity of how he’d been hit, rather than caring about the fact he had been, or why. To this old archmage, academic interest superseded social missteps, whether his or another’s, several times over.

Unfortunately, the origin of her staff was a thorny topic, seeing how she’d gotten it from raiding the Burial Room of the Ashen Hierophant. She inventoried the item and said, “I’ll give you answers when you give me mine. When we have our conversation after these trials.”

“Presuming you pass.  Arrogant creature…though I have yet to find one of considerable skill who is not. However they may hide it for the sake of their public image.” He snorted at the concept. “Very well. If you insist she remains,” he waved dismissively at Saffra, “she is your responsibility. And she will remain silent.”

Vivi’s eyes narrowed, but the request wasn’t actually unreasonable. These were Osmian’s trials, and his door she had walked through. His words again bordered on rude, though, so she found herself annoyed. She chose congeniality, since he obviously wouldn’t.

“It was cleverly done,” she said, nodding in the direction of the mountainside sloping thousands of feet to the plains below. “You didn’t teleport us; I almost thought you did. You teleported the office away, a realistic stage around us”—she twisted a foot into the soft dirt beneath her to indicate the ‘stage’ she was talking about, since the dirt, shrubbery, and other immediately local scenery were most definitely real—”and erected a subtle illusion to serve as the backdrop. I bet it would impress most people, being ‘warped’ with no spell circle, spatial sensations, or other indicators. How are you casting without casting, anyway? Preset enchantments? How do you fuel them? A soul fragment generates no mana; you’re drawing power from elsewhere. An ongoing ritual?”

Osmian leveled an appraising gaze at her. “You truly are a cut above that last boy who made it here.”

“Lysander?”

“Was that his name?” He shrugged. “A disappointment, as they all were.”

All? Saffra had said only Lysander had ever made it through Osmian’s door. Clearly that wasn’t the case.

“Yes,” he said. “You surmise the basics—and he was baffled by what, ultimately, was little more than a parlor trick. I dismissed him before so much as administering the first trial. Talented, undoubtedly, but I seek more than run-of-the-mill, once-in-a-century talent. But enough of these distractions.”

He strode calmly over to the cusp of the mountain, raised a hand, and began to cast. Or...sort of cast. As before, Vivi felt the magic, but couldn’t quite tell where the mana came from. Certainly not Osmian’s ghost.

She wondered if he could cast. More likely, the original Osmian had given this pseudo-construct the ability to interact with premade mechanisms; this whole ‘room of Trials’ was probably a shockingly complex arrangement of enchantments and rituals to fuel them. Osmian had been more famed for such than his raw spell casting. He’d been an academic, not a combat-mage like Vivi herself, and thus less concerned with the primary benefits of pure spell casting: that spells could be used anywhere, quickly, and were supplied from one’s own core. If one didn’t care for that, enchantments and rituals were more often useful forms of magic.

“Behold,” Osmian said. “An unfinished design of my own creation.” An illusory spell circle appeared in front of him, and he gestured at it. “Your task is simple. Complete it, and use it to cross the range.”

He pointed to a distant mountaintop to indicate the finish line.

Vivi looked at the design…

…and was confused.

Her brow furrowed.

Was she missing something?

“Isn’t that [Fly]?” Saffra blurted out.

Osmian seemed instantly irritated at the girl for speaking, then digested her words, and the expression morphed to confusion.

“[Fly]?” he asked.

“It totally is! That’s a public record spell,” Saffra said. “I’ve seen it before. It’s [Fly], but missing the modern control arrays. Right?”

That was, indeed, why Vivi had been confused. Even Osmian’s ‘basic filter’—the puzzle on his door—had been many times more complex.

But only because it had been novel, Vivi realized. She used [Fly] all the time. Though only tier ten, its complexity prevented even most Titled-rank mages from properly forming and incanting it. An ongoing effect that allowed intuitive control of one’s body in total defiance of gravity was no simple thing. Vivi herself was impressed by the relatively low-tier spell’s architecture.

“You were the progenitor of [Fly]?” Vivi asked, intrigued. “I suppose that makes sense. You were a gravity specialist.” The gravity specialist, for that matter.

“[Fly]? [Fly]? What nonsense do you two speak?” Osmian waved a hand at the spell circle, agitated. “This is [Earthly Shackles Unbound]!” He seemed almost horrified as his attention pivoted between the two of them. “Surely this grand working was not perfected in my absence and given a name of [Fly].”

Vivi shared a look with Saffra. She shifted uncomfortably, and gestured hurriedly for Vivi to answer him.

“I do think your name is better,” Vivi hedged, feeling awkward. She supposed the mundane title for such an astounding design was rather underwhelming.

If ghosts could pale, Osmian would have. “[Fly],” he said faintly. Cobbling his composure back together, he said, voice strained, “I knew it possible millennia would bring wondrous advancements to spell design, such that even my grand workings might become commonplace…but such ignominy! [Fly]! [Fly]? I will have the one responsible strung up and lashed! Do they have no respect for such a wondrous design?”

Vivi shifted her weight side to side, unsure how to respond. “Does this…change the trial?”

Osmian gave her a sour look. “No. Demonstrate that you’re capable of forming and controlling…[Earthly Shackles Unbound], and I will consider you to have passed. Spellcasting is the least significant of my trials, and I’ve already seen your competence in it. My legacy was never that of a combat mage.”

Did that mean further challenges would be enchantment- or ritualism-based? Interesting. She might even fail. She was more than competent with enchantments, but Vivisari, while familiar with nearly all aspects of magic, had little experience with ritualism.

She focused on the task presented to her. Bright white runes appeared in the air as she painted out [Fly]. Osmian watched with rising eyebrows. There had been a number of improvements made over the years, and Vivi suspected her own version wasn’t standard either; she’d made her own, personal modifications.

“Incredible,” Osmian murmured as gravity lost its hold on Vivi. She floated up, then side to side, demonstrating the fluidity and ease of movement. “The task is clearly perfunctory, but complete the trial as prescribed.” He gestured at the distant mountaintop.

Vivi did so, putting the spell on Saffra and flying over. Seeing how this entire environment was a stage, the room followed her, and the illusion shifted as well, so seamlessly that it seemed nothing was amiss—as if she really were out in the wilderness. For all that [Fly] had dumbfounded Osmian, the man was clearly a genius; even the ‘parlor tricks’ that composed this room held magic that impressed Vivi, and she wasn’t an easy mage to impress.

Osmian was like a founding mathematician. A genius for having invented algebra, however simplistic the field seemed now, to the point it was taught to children as early as eleven or twelve.

When she set down, Osmian nodded. “Very well. It is undeniable that your spellcasting abilities more than meet my standards. But let us see your proficiency in enchanting. I will need to teleport us.” He glanced at Saffra, and his lip pulled up in annoyance. “Your apprentice may accompany us.”

He snapped his fingers, and the environment flickered. Vivi stood in darkness. Magic grabbed at her and Saffra, and she reluctantly allowed it. A moment later, light returned.

She stood in a new environment: a lush tropical island. A boulder the size of a small house sat in front of her. Her magical senses indicated nothing special about the huge rock.

She was pretty sure she hadn’t been [Warped], just [Blinked]. She couldn’t be far from the Institute. So how was she standing on a tropical island underneath a blue sky? Squinting, she identified illusions once more, but that explained only half of the puzzle. They’d definitely moved a great distance from Osmian’s staging room; he’d needed to [Blink] them to a larger arena. Where were these places? Underneath the Institute?

Osmian’s next demand cut those musings off.

“Devise an enchantment to orbit this boulder around the island's perimeter,” he commanded. “You may presume an energy source is provided via an ongoing ritual.”

Vivi considered the challenge.

An orbiting gravity enchantment?

“Interesting,” she said.

Osmian’s trial of flight had been trivial, but only because [Fly] had been perfected across the millennium since his death. This was a task with no premade solution. She would need to construct one from scratch.

Which direction to tackle it from?

She paid no mind to Osmian or Saffra, the puzzle ensnaring her attention. It was certainly more challenging than the half-completed design on Osmian’s Door, though hardly on the level of the dimensional anomaly. That, she had spent days ruminating over and made little progress on.

In the end, composing a complex gravity enchantment could only serve as a temporary entertainment. But she enjoyed working through the design in her head nonetheless. She appreciated magic in nearly all its forms.

“Do you have tools and materials?” she asked, having sketched out the general idea.

“Simply present the design, for now. No inscription necessary.”

“Very well.”

She began to draw using an illusion, laid out in the air ahead of the three of them. Osmian snorted as she started, giving a derisive dismissal of “At least consider your approach first, woman. Only a fool rushes headlong into a project of such…”

He trailed off as the various enchantments took shape.

“No,” he announced, pointing at a clumping of runes. “You’ll need to…If you want…” His mouth shut as more glowing symbols joined together. “Ah, I see. My mistake.” He cleared his throat. “Novel, yes, but—aha! I can see you haven’t taken into account…”

Once more, he cut off, and this time stayed silent. He gazed at the array of growing enchantments not with awe, but stony silence. Read full story at N0v3l.Fiɾe.net

When she finished, he stared at the enchantments written in the runic language of High Arcana for a long minute. Finally, he shook himself.

“Well. Some of your clusters are oblique in purpose, I must admit, but the core design is sensible; I see no major flaws. Not how I would’ve approached it, but…” He was silent for another moment, then turned to frown at her. “What rank in enchanting do you hold?”

“Does it matter?”

“Nineties? The same as I?”

Vivi inclined her head. That much had to be obvious to someone as experienced as him.

“Interesting,” Osmian said. His expression remained difficult to interpret. He was looking at her with serious, appraising eyes.

“In any case,” he said, "let us see if this design is as impressive as it appears.” He smiled, some of the smugness returning. “I have my reservations. The third, and final, trial: To fuel this enchantment, you may not use your own mana. Draw the requisite energy from the flora of the island itself.”

Ah. It was as Vivi had expected.

A Trial of Ritualism.