NOVEL NEXT Book 4, Chapter 6
Of course, I didn't just have an adventure to prepare for. I was also a college student now, and I had a fair amount of coursework, most of which was non-trivial.
"Okay, so... For this one, we've got a written record saying nobody here drinks Neterian wine, along with an excerpt from an archeology report showing evidence of Neterian wine bottles dated to the same time as the record," Faith said. "The obvious conclusion is that the written record is wrong, because physical evidence trumps written records, but I'm pretty sure the professor wants us to draw a deeper conclusion than that."
"We can say very confidently that we know the author is wrong," I said. "But, I mean, there's a lot of possible reasons why they would be wrong. Maybe it's an honest mistake- the author legitimately didn't know that there were people in their town who drank Neterian wine. Or maybe it's racism, and the tradition of the Hikaano talking shit about Neterians is pretty old. We don't know, and we'd need more evidence to draw any real conclusions about the author's reasoning or the broader implications."
Bard-grade history courses were interesting. Where traditional public school history classes were about making you memorize all the details of a bunch of particularly dry stories, Bards considered "history" to be an active practice that mainly involved critical reading and comparative analysis between various written records, trying to figure out not only what the author was trying to tell us, but why they were telling us these things, and, ultimately, how reliable their testimony was.
As such, while History 101 was a survey of the early days of the Hikaano Imperium, which formed a thousand years ago around the apotheosis of Asklepius the Healer, Heather the Innkeeper, and Lejla the Merchant, our main focus wasn't on learning the rote narrative of how the Hikaano Imperium formed- we'd already learned the basic version of that in public school, anyhow- but on using it as a backdrop for practicing what Bards considered to be the foundational skills of doing history.
"This is a thousand years old, though," Emily pointed out. "Racism was different back then; the Neterians were still foreigners with weird customs, sure, but they weren't implicitly inferior, the way they'd become once the slave trade started up."
"I swear I just read something about this..." Talia muttered, leafing through her textbook. "Aha! Here we go! A contemporary account of the Neterians, which describes them as, essentially, charming strangers with an undeniable method to their madness."
"Okay, so..." I hummed quietly. "...Based on just the evidence used for the question, we can conclude that the author is wrong about Neterian wine imports, and, based on the tone the author uses in their writing, we can reasonably suppose that they harbored anti-Neterian sentiments, but, drawing in a basic familiarity with the broader sources of the time, we can also suppose that this doesn't reflect a broader prejudice against Neterians baked into Hikaano society, but simply the author personally being a bit more xenophobic than normal."
"Works for me," Faith said, as she scribbled down her answer.
---
"I'm a little impressed," Professor Tanaka- a middle-aged goblin woman with a flawless Hikaano accent- began. "I'm not... completely certain that this was a wise use of your time, however."
"Honestly, me neither," I said, before playing a C Major chord on my custom enchanted piano keyboard, one key at a time. Each key, rather than producing a sound like a piano, instead played a recording of myself singing the name of the note at the appropriate pitch. Then, when I pressed each key simultaneously, it instead played recordings of myself singing "C Major chord" at each pitch of the chord. "Unfortunately, I love making things, and once I realized that an enchanted piano was a simple case of 'push a button to make a sound,' I went... uh... A little overboard. But hey, it still makes regular piano sounds too! Just not right now, because I have it set to vocal teaching mode."
"Well, as long as you're still learning your scales..."
"It's..." I inhaled sharply through my teeth. "...A work in progress."
---
Organic Transmutation was fiendishly hard, and if I didn't have a time dilation spell and also a Healer who was maybe kinda sorta my girlfriend, I would be fucked here. The details of biology and anatomy were very, very, very important to the subject, and making changes that weren't just cosmetic required you to have a thorough understanding of the body's mechanics, so that you didn't accidentally create a creature that couldn't stand up on its own.
Also, fucking up an organic transmutation could cause organ failure or cancer or both.
There was a reason we were practicing our transmutation on mice, rather than people.
"Alright, Miss Ironheart, let's see what you've done," Professor Kaluta said, leaning forward to inspect my transmuted mouse. "Hrm... Well, that's an interesting choice. Just to confirm I'm looking at this right, walk me through your intended transmutation."
"I wanted to make the mouse bipedal, with more dextrous and hand-like front paws," I said. "I'm not sure how well I succeeded at the dexterity part, because half of that is in the brain, which I haven't touched, but the bipedalism seems self-evidently successful to me."
I pulled a sunflower seed from a bag, and held it out to my mouse, who scampered over on two legs, like a flightless bird- I'd based the bulk of this transmutation on a songbird's skeleton, simply because those were the only small bipeds I could think of. The mouse eagerly took the seed from me in its front paws- something I knew mice and rats were already perfectly capable of naturally, thanks to my dearly departed pet rat Arthur- and began to eat it.
"Oh, look closely," Professor Kaluta said, leaning in. "Those little thumbs you gave her- she's using them!" He straightened up, grinning. "Well! Congratulations, Miss Ironheart, you've successfully given a mouse an upright gait and opposable thumbs, all without giving it cancer. Excellent work."
"Thank you, Professor," I said, nodding.
---
"You wanted to see me, Professor?" I asked.
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Intermediate Ectoplasm Shaping was going reasonably well, and we were learning how to bake enchantments into ectoplasm while we created it- which would make conjuring a weapon made of ectoplasm in a fight far more practical, once we got it down well enough to cast it in a second (or simply bake the whole spellform into a ring or a wand or some other magical focus). And after I demonstrated my own work, Professor Takeda, the matronly kitsune, asked me to stay for a minute or two after class to discuss the matter.
"I'm a bit surprised by your choice," Professor Takeda said, holding my ectoplasmic warhammer in her hands. "Blasting hammers haven't been in style for a few centuries at this point."
"I'm..." I paused, my ears flicking a bit as I confirmed the other students had in fact left by now. "...I've got my own reasons to be familiar with the enchantment. Trade secrets, I'm afraid."
"I don't approve, but... I understand," Professor Takeda said. "Keeping secrets is bad for the advancement of the arts and sciences, but it can be quite good for your own personal gain. Provided it is for your own personal gain, that is- if you have some misguided notion about protecting the world from dangerous knowledge..?"
"It's personal gain," I said, shaking my head. "I like being the only one who has access to this particular strain of weaponry, and I look forward to monetizing the more-economical vehicles this promises to produce."
"Very good, then," Professor Takeda said, nodding. "Well, Catherine, you've done excellent work in this class so far. I firmly believe that you could craft an artifact of ectoplasm that would last a full decade, at this point, and all that's left for this course is moving parts. I must say, your enthusiasm for the subject is infectious."
I shrugged helplessly. "I like making things, y'know?"
"I'm aware," Professor Takeda said, smirking a little. "Which is why I'll be giving you a copy of my lecture notes for the remainder of the semester, so that you can continue developing your skills over fall break."
"...Thank you, Professor," I said quietly.
---
There was, also, an unofficial mentorship that wasn't really a class, as such.
"You've made amazing progress, Catherine," Jason said, as I tossed a ball of fire up and caught it on the way down. We were in his private residence, which he apparently did not share with Helen, and more specifically, in the room he used for ritual spellcasting, where there wasn't anything fragile or valuable for me to break with a botched spell.
"It doesn't feel that way," I muttered.
"I know," Jason said, sighing. "There are a great many reasons that Dragonblood Sorcery is so rare, these days."
"You mean aside from the whole 'genocidal Dragon Wars' thing?" I asked.
"Dragonblooded people still very much exist," Jason said. "Few of them are aware they even carry the dragon's blood, however, and the main reason for that is that Dragonblood Sorcery is a less convenient and less immediately-rewarding path to walk than Wizardry is. I understand your frustrations, Catherine: it has been nearly two full months of learning Sorcery at the feet of an ancient dragon who has devoted himself for centuries to the craft of education, and yet all you have to show for it is a new way to do things that you have been able to do with Wizardry for years."
I grunted. "But, since you're still teaching me Sorcery, I suppose you're going to tell me why I should stick with it?"
"Sorcery is not just an obsolete way to cast Arcane spells," Jason said. "Yes, the craft of Wizardry has largely supplanted it, but the domain of Sorcery is broader, able to affect the Spiritual with equal facility as the Material, and sometimes, both at once. You may recall from your mother's history lessons that Occult magic was once considered to simply be a subset of Arcane magic, with Bards simply being lesser Sorcerers, and this is why. As you grow in facility with Sorcery, you will come to discover things that are easier to do with Sorcery, things that Sorcery does better than the modern state of the art, even after centuries of very intelligent people working very hard to replicate what Sorcery could do with Wizardry and Bardsong. And it is my fervent hope, my darling archmage-in-the-making, that when you finally master Sorcery, that you will go further, that you will do things with it that no Sorcerer has ever achieved before. That, Catherine Ironheart, is why I believe that you should learn Sorcery."
I grunted.
"Well," I said, sighing. "I'll put it on the list. As much as college is trying to convince me otherwise... I've got time."
---
And, last but certainly not least...
"Good match," Veronica said, breathing heavily as she helped me up. "You had me on the ropes, there."
"Huh," I said, as my vision swam back into focus. "Yeah, that metaphor works. You sure rung my bell, alright."
We were sparring with ectoplasm training swords, which had been made by Envy- a surprisingly capable Bard, who'd already earned her Master's and was now just taking classes that piqued her interest. The ectoplasm itself was interesting, and would act like normal steel and leather, except for the injuries it dealt, which were illusory, and would disappear once the spar was over.
Which was nice, because if she'd hit me with a normal training sword made of wood, I'd have another concussion, and maybe even a cracked skull.
"I mean, jesus christ, Veronica," I continued, getting back on my feet. 'Jesus Christ' was something Summer had said a few times, mostly as an expletive. Occult translation told me that, to her, it was the name of a holy prophet, but I liked how it sounded as an expletive, and now it'd infested my vocabulary and I couldn't get it out. "You fight like a demon. Hell, worse than a demon- I've fought actual demons before, and they did not compare to you."
Veronica blushed a little, looking away. "Thanks, Cat... And..."
"...And?" I asked, tilting my head.
"...Could you please call me 'Nicky,' instead?"
I nodded. "Sure thing, Nicky. I can do that for you."
"Thank you," Nicky said, smiling at me, briefly. "I just... My family has this tradition of alliterative names- when my father went to the Maiden's Guild for a wife, he specifically asked for a Maiden whose name started with V, and..." Nicky sighed, shaking her head. "I'm sick of House Vega. I'm sick of aristocracy. I don't want House Vega to fail and have its assets seized, because I'm one of those assets, but... well, neither do I want to be made responsible for House Vega's prosperity, in such a way that I have to attend galas and socialize with other aristocrats. I want to keep being an Adventurer, even after my teammates give up and retire."
"Well..." I hummed quietly. "...There's someone I know who might be a good adventuring partner for you. Used to be Helen's personal apprentice, and I've taught her a few things too. Her name is written in the Book of Heroes, but we all call her Summer."
"Interesting..."
"Now, how well you'll get along with her depends on how tolerant you are of women who want to fuck other women," I began.
Nicky kissed me, full on the lips.
"...So that won't be a problem?" I asked quietly.
"It won't," Nicky said. "And... Thank you, Cat, for all your help. I don't know how I'll ever repay you."
"You could let me kiss you some more?"
And she ended up doing exactly that, for a good, long while.