Chapter 51: 50. Embersnap

I slipped the glowing gem back into my pocket as I took my first steps down the stairs. The library lay quiet and dark in the night, only the occasional creak of wood accompanying me. Untold knowledge lay down these steps, the culmination of centuries of academic history in Minua.

 

Getting the actual key-gem hadn’t been very difficult at all. Young adults, even those raised in an ancient world like this, tended to be quick to misplace and forget their things around, so I was able to swipe one with only a couple hours of waiting around the market. I’d been careful about it, waiting until I saw an unsecured bag laying upon a outside table.

 

A young man named ‘Isilre Curtman’ had walked back to his table only to find that he’d misplaced his identification gem and his purse for good measure. Thankfully, a guard would find the purse later, presumably because the clumsy thief misplaced it. Taking that back, he wasn’t likely to report the gem as the target of the theft. 

 

It wasn’t guaranteed to shake out like that, but I’d found that a common enough reaction back on Earth to risk it. You learned a few things when you were working outside the law, after all.

 

I made down the steps quickly, no bothering to inspect the intrincate glyphs adorning the starwell walls. Hosi, Breale, and Gideon had been asleep when I’d left, but there wasn’t any guarantee of that luck holding for the whole night. Gideon in particular didn’t actually need to sleep to keep on going, and I had seen the first night that Hosi had it in her to go on late night trips as well. So wasting time down here actually studying wouldn’t be a great idea.. 

 

The smell of some piercing chemical was the first thing to hit me as I descended into the room. It assaulted my nose like I’d walked into the chemistry lab back in Chicago, unnatural and sharp. Numerous possibilities came to mind, from it being a gaseous trap to preservation fluid, but a more likely idea came to me as I laid eyes on a nearby lamp hanging from a loose clasp on the wall. 

 

It was square and solid, much unlike the graceful stone lanterns I’d seen throughout the kingdom. It had no lid, and when I reached up to feel it there was no glass to be found. Instead, the faces of the lantern itself were made of the glowing material, and it was much dimmer than the normal kind, though it was also cool to the touch. In other words, it was built to minimize the chance of a fire from breaking out, a valid concern when one was working with pyromancies.

 

I unclasped the lantern from the wall and raised it towards the rest of the room, eager to see what lay in store.

 

It wasn’t a huge or mythical library, unfortunately. There were no hanging balconies, nor did its very size breath wonder into my mind. Instead, it took the shape of a simple square with about two dozen rows each several scores of metres long. The roof was stiflingly low overhead, and a stillness lay about with what could only be a mountain of dust left to peace in phlegmatic quiet. Books of all shapes and designs decorated the shelves, most looking to be hundreds to the page. The dim white light of the periodical lamp cast deep shadows around the corners and tables, but I found them homely and benign in comparison to the horrors I’d seen back in the capital. It almost felt like I’d stepped into my grandfather’s old library with all the welcoming zeal that entailed.

 

“So this is what a serious one looks like, huh?” I muttered to myself. “Sure beats the grimoire.”

 

For all the love I had for the book, the grimoire was just that: a single book. To have an entire collection like this at my fingertips… it was considerably more overwhelming. 

 

Where did you even start with something like this? Enchantments? Basic casting? Maybe an augment or two? 

 

I smiled as I drew the first book of the nearest shelf, one entitled ‘Introductions to Luminary Thaumaturgy: Volume 2’. The same chemical smell wafted off of it, and the pages felt cool to the touch. Probably fire retardant.

 

“Alright, let’s get to work.”

…

I nodded in satisfaction as I filled in the final line of the page in front of me. A stack of thirty or so book over various disciplines of magic lay around me on the table, each one bookmarked to a different page. My notebook was beside them several pages of charts, hastily drawn diagrams, and short essays making up my theft.

 

It was harder than I thought it’d be to find the spell parameters I wanted. Apparently, magical authors here on Elys had taken to writing half their books over relatively few spells in comparison to what I’d seen with the grimoire back on Earth. Each book was structured with countless dry stories and descriptions offering knowledge on where and when each spell was thought up, why it was needed, and each minute part of the technical know-how on how they’d created them.

 

Being short on time and even shorter on the technical framework needed to understand the later portions, I’d tried my hardest to just skim through each one looking for the telltale diagrams of the casting constructs. It wasn’t just for haste that I did it either, because from what I could glean spell-crafting seemed like the most inane and boring application of maths possible. I could almost guarantee some wizened old professor ghost baulking at me now, lecturing me over the dangers of using stuff I couldn’t understand, but then again it was also hard to underestimate how little I cared. After all, it was magic! It lost the lustor if you started separating each ‘rin’ into neat little piles and applying complicated equations to them.

 

“Forify Stamina, Quickstep, Pierce, Embersnap, Glowsmoke, Encourage, Effervesce, Pop.” I muttered. “At least a couple of these have to work with ice, right?”

 

Being myself, I’d obviously focused my selection towards more combat-capable spells, a few even of the higher rings, but I wasn’t sure how many were actually compatible with my own element. 

 

I glanced down at my hand, a familiar itch dominating my mind.

 

It couldn’t hurt to test just a few, right? I mean, the original plan was just to jot down as many as I could and test them whenever I had a free afternoon, but it’d be a great shame if absolutely none of them ended up working. I’d have to break in even more in that case, which was surely more dangerous than just testing a few here. Yeah, it’d be more cautious to try them here.

 

I raised my hand towards the empty books and focused on the mental diagram for Pop, or Salur as the Lmeri trigger word went. It called for just a few rin of mana into ‘movement’ and half as many into ‘space’. From what I could tell the first was the actual meat of the spell while the second was just for placement purposes. I couldn’t be sure though, in the same way using a random computer script wouldn’t tell you which specific functions or libraries it contained.

 

“Salur.”

 

I felt a couple rin of mana flow out of me, but the book remained unmoved.

 

Hmm? Had I messed up?

 

I checked the diagram again. Pop was supposed to a be a simple ‘unlocking’ or ‘open’ spell meant for small things just like this. If I were to compare it to Earth spells, Aperi would probably be the closest, which coincidentally was also the first I tried to cast here. I really couldn’t see how something like that would require fire or heat.

 

“Salur.”

 

I bit my cheek in confusion as the stack of books remained undisturbed despite the mana cost.

 

Could I be messing something up with the procedure instead? A spell would be pretty weak when you first learned it, but it should at least do something. And it’d definitely activated too, or it wouldn’t have taken any mana. So why wasn’t it moving at all?

 

I closed my eyes again and focused on the closest book.

 

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“Salur.”

 

I blinked in surprise as I heard the book flutter weakly.

 

“Ah, you need a target!”

 

I chuckled to myself as I looked to the next one on the list.

 

Maybe just a few more.

…

As I trudged along the garden path, I couldn’t help but yawn. 

 

It was late at night, later than I’d wanted to stay out with school tomorrow. Still, I’d made great progress with the magic, happily finding out that Quickstep, Encourage, Pop, and Embersnap had all at least activated for me. Of all of them, Embersnap had been the greatest surprise what with the name, even scaring the crap out of me when I’d tried it and the table had flash-cooled in front of me. With a bit more practice, it might even freeze something.

 

That was a small problem, of course. Embersnap was for throwing a small stream of embers, or fire at higher skill levels, but it obviously wouldn’t do that for me. I’d have to test everything that worked to see if the ‘Saphry-version’ would even be useful.

 

A sudden droning whistle shook me out of my ruminations, right before a far off bang not unlike a firework exploded from the direction of the cliffs. Immediately the cloud of exhaustion cleared from my mind as I habitually leaned onto the nearest hedge.

 

An explosion at this hour? Did that come from Minua?

 

Another whistle came right after it, and before long distant crackling and pops were coming in at a waterfall rate. It sounded almost like volleys of blunderbusses being fired from far off.

 

Curiosity overtaking me, I quickened my pace towards the girl’s dorms. It was right on the valley-side cliffs, and I’d be able to see most of the city from the balconies attached to it. In all likelihood it was just a continuation of the fireworks from the festival a few days ago, but somehow my gut was telling me something different.

 

As I came across the last hedge, I found that the dorm had awakened ahead of me. Half-dressed and groggy girls had gathered around the cliffside balconies and were peering over in large groups, and more still stumbled out as I approached. Tense conversations belayed an underlying unease about the students.

 

“[Christ], of course this happens tonight.” I muttered. “Nothing can go just right.”

 

Breale emerged soon after, beckoning me over as she caught sight of me.

 

Where were you? Gideon accused me as I approached. There’s no way you woke up before I did.

 

“What’s going on?” I ignored the drake. “Fireworks?”

 

“I don’t know… I just woke to explosions.” Breale said, a slight panic behind her eyes. “Where’s Hosi? What were you doing?”

 

“I was on a walk. I couldn’t sleep.”

 

A panicked voice interrupted us from the cliffside.

 

“Was that Idantal? By the Star, it can’t be…”

 

A pit opened up in my stomach at the words, and one glance at Breale told me she was feeling the exact same way. 

 

A louder crack and a bloom of orange-red light drew additional cries of alarm from the students.

 

“Everstar forgive us.” Breale whispered.

 

“You don’t think…?”

 

We both rushed over to the balcony and looked over towards Minua, only to find our largest fears confirmed.

 

Just outside the city, streams of red and orange licked about like roman candles in the night. Thick ropes of liquid fire shot through the air like molten metal, so bright that I could easily make out where they were. Thinner rounds not too unlike the ones I’d seen fired at myself several times now shot through the air like tank shells, each one either sending up smoke or dissolving uselessly upon the personal shields of the other side. Occasionally, one would richochet along the ground and explode in the air like mortar launched fireworks. The lights of all this played upon the city with the luminance of a full moon, and I couldn’t imagine how loud it must’ve been closer to the action. 

 

It was immediately clear to me what was happening.

 

“No…” Breale muttered. “This is war.”