NOVEL NEXT Chapter Thirty-Four: Adept Abjuration
I worked the next day at the Charm and Fable as usual. It was a fairly slow day, so I spent a lot of time working on the Jadis' remodel technique. It was significantly more complex than any of the exercises that we'd studied so far, particularly in getting both halves of the technique to work together. Performing either side alone wasn't too horrible, and I was able to get them to glow green, but getting the entire bowl to glow green felt utterly impossible.
After work finished, I spent some time with Salem and Jackson, the latter of whom seemed a bit depressed that Yushin was too busy training with cultivation in order to join us. Salem and I teased him a bit for that, but truthfully none of our hearts were in it, and I eventually broached a new subject.
"I'm not sure I believe the Shé clan," I said. "Yushin clearly does, and I don't want to push her on it, but I think it would be far easier to attempt to use her own magic as a bridge to turn her into an avatar than it would be to summon an avatar into being using it as a bridge."
"I don't know much about bloodlines, but I understand the power of faith fairly well," Jackson said contemplatively. "It's always easier to invest it than it is to bring things forward. That's why when I've channeled power far beyond what I could hold, it was done through sending an angelus to partially possess me. Most gifts that summon things are used to summon weaker things, like wadjetktt or badbcleite."
I shivered at that description. I knew that Jackson found it comforting to have such a mighty force overlooking his every action and decision, but I couldn't help but find it incredibly unnerving.
"Aye," Salem agreed. "I dinnae much 'bout either of them, but I do know a thing or two 'bout names. An' I don't see how somethin' that sold its name an' became known as the Traitor Wyrm even by its own people could not betray those people in some way."
"We're in agreement then," I said. "What do you want to do in order to stop this from happening?"
"I don't know," Jackson said. "I'm going to entreat with Effervesce and see if he is able to help, but…"
When he trailed off into nothing, both Salem and I looked at him, confused, and he let out a sigh.
"Interfering with another deity's domain is difficult for any god. When he helped you, Emrys, it was easy. You don't follow any gods, even casually. None of the Dreki really do, and even though there are a handful that have casual faith, none of them are priests or other wielders of divine power."
"Even if Effervesce can't directly stop it, it's still something," I agreed, nodding. "I'm going to see if I can find any way to stop the ritual, or even just get my hands on it. It's difficult to say, though. I'm going to start preparing some spellglyphs."
"I dinnae ken wha' I can do," Salem agreed. "It's complicated. I'll look into seein' if there's any spells I can create with my affinity to help 'er drive off foreign influences."
With that as settled as it could be, we turned to lighter topics for a while, before turning in for bed. The following morning, as soon as my morning ablutions were completed, I rushed off to Adept Abjuration. The class had gotten smaller, like my Practical Magecraft course, but it hadn't been entirely decimated like Ethics had been. I took a seat in the same spot that I'd sat in during my first year, and then waited with everyone else. When professor Caeruleum entered, they smiled over the students as they began passing out the syllabus.
"I'm glad to see that so many of you have made it to year two without issue, especially considering the unique challenges that some of you faced in getting here."
As they spoke, they glanced around, locking eyes with me, but also with a couple of the other students who I didn't know. It was a good reminder that, even though most hadn't fought an elder dragon to stay in school, many others had their own issues.
I glanced down at the syllabus, half expecting for it to fall into the same format as the transmutation course had: a unique ether shaping exercise, followed by plenty of theory and spellcraft. To my surprise, instead of an ether shaping technique, there was a ritual spell listed simply as buckler. That was enough to cause me to raise a metaphorical eyebrow, but I continued to read down the syllabus.
There was a good bit of spellcraft listed on the syllabus, some of which I recognized, even if I didn't actually know, like mass energy barrier or dreamshield, which was able to be imbued into a pillow in order to protect the mind while asleep. Others, like shield from arrows or banish, I didn't explicitly recognize, but I was able to deduce their effects from the name, if nothing else.
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One of the spells, true form, did catch my eye mainly out of curiosity. If I cast the spell on myself, would it forcibly transform me into a draconic form? What if I cast it on Gerhard? It could presumably undo his temporary transformation, but his draconic form had been taken as the price to create that form's power. Would it fail?
Those were questions for another time, however, as professor Caeruleum raised their hand and animated the chalk, starting to draw a spell out on the board. It had three circles, but they were spaced out far too much to be able to cast the spell in an ether pool without it dissolving, so it was likely meant to be written down.
"As I'm sure those of you who skimmed over the syllabus already saw, we're beginning this spell using a ritual known as buckler. For those of you who took force magic, this will likely be at least partially familiar to you, as some of the first year class' studies are in preparation for doing something similar. Indeed, many people with a force affinity are capable of modifying this spell to run off their affinity, rather than the components. Now, please examine the spell, and tell me what it is you think that it does?"
They gestured to the diagram on the board, and I leaned forward. The spell had several parts in common with the basic shield spell, and some elements from arcane armor and arcane missile, mainly in the sense that it created and shaped arcane force. Between the name of the ritual, and the comparison to shield, I was fairly confident in my guess, so I raised my hand.
"It creates a permanent shield spell, only miniaturized. Instead of something large enough to cover most of our bodies, at least from one direction, it's about the size of a dinner plate. It looks like it can be manipulated into place with ether manipulation, like getting a shield to pivot and take an attack."
"Excellent, and mostly correct," professor Caeruleum said, smiling and nodding. "I would have said that the effect is semi-permanent, rather than permanent, but I do understand why you wouldn't think that way. Now, can anyone tell me why this ritual isn't in something like Fundamental Magecraft? It's useful to nearly everyone, surely?"
There was a beat of silence, before someone raised their hand and suggested that it could only be used by those who had undergone the mage dedication for abjuration. That made my stomach flop, especially when professor Caeruleum didn't immediately deny it, and instead looked around the class to see if anyone else wanted to give an answer. When nobody did, they finally answered.
"Not quite. It's technically possible that anyone can cast the buckler ritual, but it's usually only done by those who have undergone the dedication. This is because in order to complete the spell, the caster has to be capable of casting forty-five perfectly clear, non-ether leaking shield spells, each cast in under four seconds, without the use of a wand."
"What?!" a half-giant sitting near me cried, shaking his head, and professor Caeruleum held up their hand for silence. I honestly wasn't surprised – the imbuements and rituals that I'd learned last year had seemed entirely too simple to me.
"The ritual begins on a new moon, and is concluded under the light of the full moon. Each night, you head outside and create a circle of about twenty silver of ether crystal dust, black salt, white sage, and ground acorns. For the first five days, you do the first circle, then the second for the next five, then the third for the last five. Under the moon's light, or lack thereof in the case of the new moon, you step within the circle and have ten seconds to wandlessly cast three perfect shield spells. The components will be consumed, and you begin again the next night."
"What if it's a month with fourteen days between the new moon and the full moon, instead of fifteen?" a girl in third year, with vibrant purple and yellow hair, asked. "And what if the moon is covered by clouds? And what if you mess up one of the spells?"
"My, aren't you full of questions. Let me see – a month with fourteen days, won't work. The spell will fail to even take root in the first place. It's not a coincidence I'm beginning this spell now, though. The new moon is in two days, and there will be fifteen until it is full. You don't need to worry about cloud cover, that doesn't interrupt the spell. Even rain won't. And if you mess up one of the castings of shield, then you'll have to start entirely over from the beginning, wasting all of the time and money you put into the spell so far. Does that answer all of your questions?"
I did some quick mental math. I'd get the exact weights later, but approximating twenty silver of ether crystal per night across fifteen nights, this would eat up three hundred of my prize box of five hundred silver worth of ether crystal dust. That sounded like it would probably be worth it, but I also wanted to know more about the buckler, so I raised my hand again.
"How strong is the buckler?"
"It's a bit stronger than the first circle spell for shield. For those of you familiar with layering spells, it's akin to a layered shield. If it breaks, it can be repaired with a relatively small investment of ether, barely more than a cantrip."
"Does its strength improve once the ether pool growth slows, and it becomes viable to begin compressing the pool to a denser state?"
If it did, then when I fused my dragonfire into my ether pool, the buckler's strength would explode massively, which would let it be useful as a long term tool. But if it couldn't, then I'd likely outgrow the spell, especially if I focused one of the archmage dedications onto shield.
"It does," professor Caeruleum confirmed. "Though for any of you lucky enough to have never heard about ether compression, I advise you to put it out of your mind…"
They continued to rattle off a very similar speech to the one that professor Silverbark had given in my first year, and I nodded along, though I mostly tuned them out. Once they'd finished, they waved their hand and expelled a few dozen large leather bags, and an equal number of small cloth ones from their locker and onto the table.
"While I am not able to provide ether dust for all of you, the black salt, white sage, and ground acorns are cheap enough. Everyone please take a large and small bag of each component, and we'll spend this class working to make sure that you're able to mix them into the form of the ritual…"