Book 3. Chapter 51
Brin woke up early. So early it was probably still late for some people. The middle of the night. Whatever the case, the fact was that he was awake and he couldn’t get back to sleep, not now. Not with what they planned to do today.
He got up, nodded to the guards keeping watch, and went over to sit near the bonfire, which only had a few smoking coals left.
For once, the anxiety burning a hole in his stomach didn't have anything to do with Aberfa. Well, it was only indirectly related to Aberfa. No, it was about the [Witch]. No matter how confident Hogg acted, taking down a [Witch] was never a simple matter, and Brin was expected to kill her familiar. Without any idea of what it was, he couldn't prepare. Hogg hadn't dared to send his Visible Eyes close, and when Brin had tried to send an Invisible Eye in the cave, he'd tripped some kind of anti-illusion defense and his spell had disappeared. He hadn't dared try again after that, lest the [Witch] in question become aware that she'd been found. Hopefully it wasn't already too late.
There had to be something he could do to prepare. He felt like it was the morning of an exam he hadn't studied for. Hard to believe he used to get stressed out about that sort of thing. No one would've died if Mark had failed a class and had to repeat a year, but it sure had felt like it, and that's what it felt like now.
He decided to run through his Self-Invisibility spell again. These past months he'd spent a lot of time going over his spells and paring down the amount of words of Language he needed to cast them. Lots of words could be combined or omitted by imbuing the words around them with more complexity of understanding and intent. Then it was just a matter of re-recording the faster version.
Self-Invisibility was still his slowest spell. It took him more than two minutes to cast it, which would never work in a combat scenario. He ran through the spell, not using the stored memory, but actually reading it out. He also didn't use [Directed Meditation].
In retrospect, [Directed Meditation] was probably his favorite Skill. If he had to return to his old life with only one Skill it would be difficult to take anything else.
Old Mark had been plagued with distractability and lack of focus. Some days if the problem was fun or interesting enough, he could sit for twelve hours and never glance away, but more often it was endless procrastination and avoidance. He'd go entire days staring at his computer screen, wanting to get started but not being able to force himself to do it. [Directed Meditation] changed all that. It gave him complete focus, every time. But there were downsides. The inability to notice anything else, even if he was on fire, was a big one. Another thing he noticed was that it made it easier to focus, but it also prevented all the odd random thoughts that led to innovation and creativity. He’d execute the task he’d set out for, but nothing else.
So rather than use his favorite Skill, Brin cast his spell the hard way. When it was done, he felt the spell come together, but didn't activate it. He didn't want one of the guards to see him disappear out of the corner of their eye. He let it dissipate.