Flinging Rocks at Bureaucrats in a Magical Academy

Fabrisse knocked once, then twice more, before the door opened on its own with a grinding sound, like stone relenting. The room beyond was about the kind of cold that he’d expected, and smelled faintly of chalk, dried clay, and polished brass.

The first thing he noticed about the Terra-Resonant Archive were the walls. Every surface had been deliberately shaped, etched, or inlaid—some with geomantic glyphs, others with strange sigil-stamps he couldn’t quite read. One side of the room was taken up entirely by a modular shelving wall, the kind that extended both vertically and underground, and marked clearly by a chained rune switch labeled ‘Subterranean Archives: Authorized Access Only.’

This place looked like his dream coming true. If only he knew the Earth Thaumaturgy department was like this, he would’ve applied for an apprenticeship a second time. His first application was rejected, and if it wasn’t for Lorvan’s recommendation, they wouldn’t have so much as glanced at his second.

But before he could take a step further inside, someone looked up from a slate table near the back.

Seated there was a man perhaps Fabrisse’s age, maybe a little older. He wore the modest grey-trimmed robe that was supposed to be of the young apprentice, but his posture radiated the kind of precision most students didn’t even fake. He was tall, narrow-shouldered, and gave off the impression of someone who did not speak unless directly addressed. A small silver emblem with two concentric circles with a downward-pointing arrow gleamed on his collar. Not a full Earth sigil, but close.

“Magus Assistant Min Hajin,” he said with a polite nod, as though Fabrisse should have already known. “You must be the student Instructant Lugano spoke of.”

“Fabrisse Kestovar,” he replied, trying not to fidget. “I’m . . . interested in Earth Thaumaturgy.”

Min inclined his head. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

That wasn’t meant to be hostile, Fabrisse thought. Just honest. Maybe even hopeful, in a slightly withering sort of way.

Then Min stood, gesturing to the room with an economy of movement that seemed designed not to disturb the dust.

“You may look around. Magus Exemplar Konan is below, calibrating the Strata Core. She’ll be with you shortly.”

Fabrisse did just that.

He turned to the shelving wall again and realized it wasn’t just modular. It was categorized, beautifully so.

On the left, neatly stacked in padded alcoves, were Sample Classifications: Metallic and Semi-Metallics—complete with cross-referenced index glyphs detailing thaumaturgic conductivity, natural resonance retention, and shatter thresholds. The center columns contained Sediment Strata Cores, each labeled with provenance dates and imprint depth notations. There was even a color-coded sigil system—green for inert, yellow for volatile, red for cursed.

He crouched before one labeled ‘Zharek Composite: 3% Soulstone Contamination — Do Not Touch Without Rites.’

Even the warning tag was elegant.

To the right, on narrow drawers with smooth gliding tracks, he spotted Aetheric Echo Fossils, Claybound Relics, and what looked like compressed geomantic song tablets—likely used for harmonic resonance training. Some of the pieces were so fine they looked like sculptures. Others were just rocks, but the rarer rocks than those he could find inside the caves he usually frequented.

It was all absurdly well-kept.

He didn’t even realize he was smiling until Min asked, “Are you enjoying the view?”

Caught off guard by the question, Fabrisse jolted. “Yes,” he said, a little too quickly. He winced; he hadn’t meant to sound surprised by his own interest. “I didn’t think the Archive would be this organized.”

Min gave the faintest of nods, either approval or indifference. It was hard to tell. “Not here to be beautiful, these earths. But Earth work tends to become beautiful by accident, if done correctly.”

He moved with quiet steps toward a smaller shelf near the outer curve of the chamber—shorter, more accessible, and without any security glyphs or warning etchings.

“You’ll start here,” Min tapped one of the brass plaques with the back of his knuckle, and made a sound like a miniature chisel striking. “Introductory resonance cores and aether-storing stones. Simple to handle and less reactive to stray emotion, they are. You’ll train with these until Magus Konan says otherwise.”

Fabrisse stepped forward and squinted at the tags. “These look like . . . quartz?”

“Quartz, basaltite, some resonant sandcast variants. Don’t let their dullness fool you. They’re the only reason most first-year apprentices don’t lose their hands.”

He leaned down beside Fabrisse and slid open a sample drawer. The felt lining made a tiny frictionless squeak. Satisfying.

Inside lay an assortment of dull-colored stones, each nestled in its own padded recess and marked with a stamped brass tag:

Clear Quartz — Tier I Reservoir

Rivercut Feldspar — Low Yield, High Stability

Redline Obsidian — Do Not Agitate (Current Charge: 22%)

Min continued, “These respond to clean, steady mnemonics. Earth doesn’t reward enthusiasm. It rewards consistency.”

Fabrisse exhaled. That, at least, sounded doable.

Then Min looked at him fully for the first time and added, “Try not to be interesting, Kestovar. Rarely last long, the interesting ones.”

But Min seems like an interesting guy, he thought.

Before Fabrisse could decide whether that was a threat or good advice, the floating glyph jumped at him.

Phase 2 of 4: Calibrate Localized Resonance Anchor

Location: Terra-Resonant Archive

Trigger Condition: Stand within an Earth-aligned Thaumaturgic locus of stability

Objective: Synchronize your presence with a fixed spatial point of aetheric saturation

Instructions: Remain motionless and silent for 30 seconds while holding a neutral-earth sample.

✦ Do not project spells.

✦ Do not allow your thoughts to ‘tug’ on emotion.

[SYSTEM NOTE: This process cannot be skipped. Orientation begins with stillness.]

This seems specifically Earth-related, he thought. Is the glyph trying to guide me towards Earth-based Thaumaturgy?

Then, a slow grinding hum echoed from the stairwell behind Fabrisse and Min.

Magus Exemplar Konan was on her way up.

Tall and broad-shouldered, Konan Kann’s presence pinned the room down like another layer of gravity. Her skin was deep brown, rich with undertones like polished hematite, and her eyes were darker still. She wore her hair in close coils braided back into a crownbound loop, streaked with silver that didn’t age her so much as mark her as elemental, like a mineral that had been compressed into clarity over time.

Konan didn’t speak at first. She looked at Min. Min inclined his head and stepped aside.

Then she turned to Fabrisse, gaze as flat and exact as a pressure plate. “You must be Kestovar.”

Fabrisse tried not to straighten like he’d just been caught slouching in front of a tectonic spirit. “Yes, ma’am. I mean, Magus Exemplar.”

Konan studied him a moment longer, then said, “What made you interested in Earth Thaumaturgy?”

Her voice was steady and textured like distant thunder—not loud, but impossible to ignore.

Fabrisse opened his mouth. No answer came out.

It was such a straightforward question, but it hit like a stone dropped into still water. The answer he’d prepared, something about ‘resonance potential’ or ‘technical alignment with his aetheric attributes,’ dissolved on his tongue. Those were things Greg would say. Real reasons. Scholarly reasons.

But his weren’t.

“I . . .” He glanced down at his satchel. “I think it started when I smashed my face into a stack of pebbles.”

Min, still off to the side, raised one eyebrow.

Konan asked, “Elaborate, please.”

He scratched his cheek and began, “I was small and not particularly good at sitting still. My mother would bring me to the shrine every third day. It wasn’t far from where we lived. She’d go there to offer rites, talk with the others, help tend the devotional circles. You know, grown-up stuff.”

He then rubbed his knuckles along the edge of his satchel strap. “Sometimes, my sister would be there with me, but often there weren’t any other kids. So I’d just . . . run around. I tried to find something to do. At first I chased the temple cats, but they didn’t like being chased. Then I tried sneaking after birds, but they always flew off. One time I ran after a rodent and tripped.”

He gave a short laugh, more at himself than the memory. “Smashed my face straight into a pile of pebbles. I thought I broke my nose. But when I looked up—right in front of me, there was this bit of quartz. It had caught the sun just right. It glowed like it had its own light.” He glanced up. “I think that was the first time I realized rocks could be . . . beautiful. Not just heavy or boring or in the way. So I started collecting them. I didn’t know it had anything to do with magic back then. I just knew it felt important to pick them up.”

There was a pause.

“Now I know,” he added, “some of them remember being picked up.”

Konan stared at him for another moment, enough for anxiety to ripple within him again. Finally, she gave a small nod. “You seem to have a talent for poetic mnemonics, at least. But you should remember there isn’t much for you to do here. We involve heavily with theoretical categorization and mapping the muddy frameworks of the strata, and unfortunately it is not something the current leadership is willing to spend resources on.”

“I understand.”

That again.

Rocks have their innate attributes—stable, durable, immune to flux. People use them for everything from crafted wards to environmental stabilization, even culinary alchemy. But because they didn’t prance to resonance charts, the Synod had declared them inert. They had discouraged mineral studies for decades now. Unless you could light a hall on fire or redirect a river midstream, you weren’t worth listening to.

He looked past Konan, to the rows of stacked spell-maps and theory scrolls gathering dust in the alcove. Half of these structures held the key to resonance stabilization, or at least stopping the Synod buildings from collapsing from time to time.

But sure. Flashy gusts and flame glyphs.

“We give our students a hand-made hat. I’ll get you one.” And with that, Konan turned and began descending the stairwell again. Within a moment, she was gone.

“A hat?” Fabrisse asked.

Min, still standing near the shelf of resonance cores, offered the faintest shrug. “She makes them with claybound linen and rune-stamps them herself. Excellent durability, those hats.”

“But where’s yours?”

“Good question.” He turned to face Fabrisse fully for the first time and proceeded to not answer the question. There was something almost like approval in the tilt of his voice now, though his expression remained mostly neutral.

“Welcome to the Wing of Substratal Studies,” Min said. “You’ll want to keep your boots clean.”