The First Mage

Around noon the next day, the guards confirmed that the caravan and all of the guards from Alarna had left. While they hadn’t done any extensive searches during their stay, they apparently did patrol around town more than usual, and as we knew, they had also been at the mayor’s house. However, now that they were gone, and the Cerus guards had given us green light, we could finally go to the ritual platform. Even the mayor accompanied us for the first time, to watch our experiments and introduce us to our guinea pigs.

“As you can probably imagine, the Callings in Cerus aren’t very varied,” the mayor said. “We have mostly Workers, Fighters, and Charmers, but I’ve tried to find a decent selection of test subjects in advance and informed them to gather at noon. Most market goers have left by now, so it’s quiet at the platform.”

One of the benefits of coming to Cerus was that towns that didn’t have a ritual platform of their own could use the one found here for free. They would get their Callings, while Cerus got the traffic. That’s why quite a few young adults would come to this town during the week when the market took place. With how valuable the Callings were, or rather, with how useless people would be without one, everybody who couldn’t receive the ritual at their hometown would eventually make their way here. Of course, another factor was that you would typically not be allowed to stay or live if you were not able to do your part.

However, during our talks with the mayor we actually learned that not every town had the same laws as Alarna regarding people who couldn’t fulfill their destiny. Apparently there were a few settlements where nobody would care about your situation, as long as you were self-sufficient or had someone willing to take care of you. Although the beast threat was still a problem. Similarly, you could technically stay in Cerus indefinitely, as long as you were able to pay for the inn.

Why exactly these laws still existed, nobody could or would tell me, however. The basic idea seemed plausible enough. If you can’t contribute to society, you are removed from it. However, it seemed excessive to “put people to rest” just because of that. Even if I were to accept that entering the Wildlands was a death sentence, and that dying in peace within the townwalls was preferable to getting ripped to shreds by beasts, shouldn’t they at least give people a choice? While Berla hadn’t been able to tell me why these laws had never been changed, the mayor seemed to know more, but chose to only say that it was “tradition.”

Initially I had also been surprised that this affected all citizens equally, including royalty, who would otherwise be able to afford a few family members not working, but apparently the equality part was a big deal for the people, dating back to a revolution that almost happened once, not long after Alarna was founded.

With that our conversation had essentially been concluded, and eventually the ritual square came into view, where a group of eight young people and a few of their parents were waiting. Based on their uncertain looks, I guessed the mayor had probably not explained in detail what was going to happen here today.

“Welcome, everyone! Thank you for coming on such short notice!” he said once we had arrived at the platform. “As I told you a few days ago, I would like to conduct a series of unscheduled rituals today, for anyone who’s willing to take part in a little experiment. All of you were selected because you want a specific Calling, which isn’t necessarily the same as your parents’, and if today goes well, we'll be able to give you that. In addition to getting your ritual early, you will also get five hundred Kira as compensation for helping us.”

While some of them still looked confused, a few eyes lit up when they heard that they might be able to get a specific Calling for sure and make money from it.

“Mr. Mayor,” one parent said questioningly, “may I ask how this is supposed to work? How would you control the Calling someone will get?”

“We have a guest today, who will be able to answer that question, and who will also carry out these rituals. Mr. Remor, if you would?”

The mayor took a step back as he introduced me and let me take over from there. It was important that someone the citizens trusted was here, but the mayor would naturally not be able to say much about the process.

“Hello, everyone. To get right to your question, I have a very rare Calling that gives me some knowledge about scripture sigils, and with the generous help of your mayor, I have been able to decipher the ritual platform sigils. The knowledge I have gained not only allows me to determine which Calling a person received, or will receive, it also lets me control the ritual to a degree.”

Even more than before, the people looked at me with uncertainty. “What is your Calling exactly?” one of them asked.

“As far as we know, I’m the first one who has received this Calling. I named it ‘Sourcerer.’”

We had debated whether we should actually tell people about Tomar’s fake Calling, but eventually we concluded that it would be easier. Not only would it explain where we got our ability and our knowledge from, it would also give us some credibility, because it was a “god-given” power. The flip side was that we would presumably become well known, as the first one to receive this Calling, but the biggest military might in the area was after us already, so it couldn’t get much worse. However, as was to be expected, my explanation just brought on more suspicious looks.

“I can imagine that my claims are a little difficult to believe, so how about a little demonstration?” I said and motioned Pyran forward, who was carrying the portable water source. “You can just set it down right here, thank you.”

He did as instructed and plopped the heavy cube down right in front of me. “As you can see, this is a water source. However, you can also see that it has new scripture sigils on it. I have modified it, and it will actually not give water in its current state.”

I put a blue stone on top of the water source to demonstrate that no water would come out, which seemed to be the expected result to the people in attendance, since the normal sigils were nowhere to be seen.

“What this cube will actually do right now, is show us what Calling someone is most likely to receive,” I said and took a white stone from a basket we had brought, to put it onto the water source before I continued. “Pyran here is the son of a Fighter and a Charmer. As you know, this means he was most likely to receive one of these two Callings. Once he touches this cube, the typical Calling signs associated with these two will appear and show us exactly that.”

I nodded towards Pyran, who already knew the procedure from yesterday, and he crouched down to touch the cube, at which point the blue Fighter sign appeared.

While the people were surprised, the young adults weren’t quite as amazed as I had expected. Maybe they had already seen signs in this square when others had received their rituals.

I laid down a few more white stones as Pyran repeatedly placed his hands on the cube, producing blue and pink lights. “As you can see, it’s a relatively even split for him, and when he had his ritual, he was randomly assigned the Fighter Calling.”

It was probably good that Pyran was with us and that he had demonstrated the script without any hesitation, showing people that it was safe, as a girl who had apparently come alone watched the demonstration with great curiosity and piped up as soon as he and I were done. “Can I try it?” she asked.

“Absolutely, that’s what we’re here for. Come on,” I said and waved her over. “What Callings do your parents have?”

“They’re both Researchers... but I find that incredibly boring,” she said with a frown. “I’ve been hoping that I would get a different Calling.”

“Alright,” I said and put another white stone on the cube. “Let’s see what Calling you’re supposed to get. Just put your hand on the cube, inside the marked area.”

Moment of truth... I thought. The first normal person at the right age without a Calling.

She touched the cube, the white stone dissolved, and to her delight, the sign that appeared was not the Researcher one, but a green light, indicating...

“Handiworker! Yes!!” she said ecstatically.

“Heh, congratulations. But we’ll do it a few more times, to be sure, okay?”

“Okay!” she said enthusiastically, but her bright smile quickly disappeared when the next sign we got were orange lights that flew around, before settling into something that looked vaguely like a stack of books. Someone was seriously lazy when they created these signs... Most of them are the same, copy-pasted lights, exploding into spheres. Only three seem to have a dedicated effect.

We repeated the test eight more times to come to a conclusion. While ten attempts weren’t exactly statistically sound, we couldn’t sit here all day, wasting stones, so we had decided to use ten for this initial experiment. After the last one, I announced her results.

“You got Handiworker seven times and Researcher three times. That means you’re very likely to receive the Handiworker Calling, even if we don’t do anything special.”

“You can make it so I will definitely receive the Handiworker Calling though?” she asked.

“That’s the plan,” I said with a smile and stood up to address the people again. “This test is at the core of what we’re going to do. We will check what Calling you are most likely to get and then modify the result, so you will get the specific Calling you desire. However, we can only give the Callings that we have ‘available’ here. For example, without a Ruler present, we can’t give someone that Calling. But if you would normally become a Handiworker, and you would rather be a Fighter, we can arrange that.”

By this point, everyone seemed excited, though I still had to tell them that this was all new territory. “However, I need to inform you about something. One reason why the mayor is offering you financial compensation is that this has never been tested before. Whoever goes first will be the very first, and while I’m confident that it will work, I can’t guarantee it until we have concluded that first test.”

I explained that they wouldn’t technically lose anything if we failed, because they should still receive their normal Calling, but the idea of going first seemed to not be very appealing to most.

“If you’ve never done this before, you don’t know whether it’s safe, right?” one of the parents asked. “Can you guarantee that nothing will happen to my son?”

Reasonable questions are the worst. Though I shouldn’t deceive them.

“I’m very confident, but no, I can’t guarantee it. I imagine your worries will be alleviated once someone goes through it successfully, but someone will have to be the first one.”

While some of the young men and women still looked willing to try it, their parents were much more careful and held them back. Thankfully, the girl I had already tested raised her hand when nobody else came forward.

“I’ll do it,” she said with just a hint of hesitation.

“That’s great, thank you for your help. Now that we have our first candidate, I would like to test everyone else, to see which Callings we have to work with today. Would that be okay?”

Since they had already seen the “test cube” work, nobody had an issue with going through that procedure, and after about ten minutes we had concluded the Callings these kids would receive under normal circumstances. Between them, we had two Fighters, two Handiworkers, two Workers, one Researcher, and one Charmer, with all but one matching their parents. A varied selection, as promised by the mayor.

Next, I had to modify the ritual platform, to adjust it for our experiment. The marked area where you would normally stand was a little over a meter in diameter, and we would have to split that up into two sections. One would be for the person providing the right Calling, while the other would be for the candidate. If someone wanted to step onto it normally, however, they could simply place one foot on either side. The people looked on, some in fascination, some in horror, as I scratched away part of the sigils on the platform and replaced them.

The final step, after marking the areas and adjusting the input and output, was adding a small delay after the sign effect, so we could cancel if we got an undesired, random Calling. With just these few simple changes, we were ready.

The entire time Riala was by my side, supposedly because she would get scared if she wasn’t, and I had asked everyone else to stay away from the platform until I said otherwise. The official reason was that we couldn’t have someone accidentally damage anything or distract me, but I actually just didn’t want anyone to see the scripts, which we didn’t want them to know yet, even if it was unlikely that someone like Riala was among them, who would just soak all of it up like a sponge. Once I was done, I covered the new scripts with cloth, to “protect” the chalk, and then I turned towards the girl.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said nervously.