Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent

He muttered a string of silent curses and tried to open the skill repository, but nothing happened. He focused harder, willing the system to respond. Open ‘Skill’, he thought. Gain access to ‘Skill’. Acknowledge meat vessel. Hello?

Still nothing.

He reached up and poked at the floating letters.

His finger went right through them.

What is this made of? Light?

Fabrisse frowned. “Okay. Maybe . . . maybe it needs ritual context.”

He squared his shoulders and began miming the closest thing he could think of: Thaumaturgic glyphcraft. It sort of made sense. The floating rectangles resembled sigil frames, and the system had already used words like ‘calibration’ and ‘orientation.’ He could work with that.

He planted his feet, cleared his throat, and focused on a mnemonic he remembered from an invocation called Seeking the Veiled Way. He whispered the chant:

“By spiral thought and silent flame,

let hidden pattern show its name . . .”

Then he flourished his hand with a sweeping spiral, splaying his fingers as he sketched imaginary glyphs into the air.

Nothing appeared.

Not even a speck of color? I should put some emotions into it.

He channeled the only emotion he’d been able to produce consistent color from: embarrassment.

The only thing visible was the rustle of his robes and the increasingly erratic rhythm of his feet. He added more motion, thinking perhaps the spellwork needed ‘more gesture.’ It probably looked ceremonial in his head. It looked very not ceremonial from the outside.

A faint blush of mottled pink leaked from the tips of his fingers. Finally, some color.

He was halfway through what may have been a sacred pirouette when Dubbie returned with two steaming mugs.

She stopped in the doorway.

“What,” she said, “are you doing.”

Fabrisse froze, arms held aloft like a marionette. “I was trying to interface with a conceptual menu using a thaumaturgic equivalence ritual—”

“You look like a monkey doing interpretive dance,” she said, stepping around him.

“It’s experimental.”

She set the mugs down and handed him one. “Right. Drink your tea.”

Fabrisse plopped down onto the nearest cushion with a sigh heavy enough to qualify as dramatic exhalation. He cradled the mug but didn’t drink.

“I still haven’t been able to channel another Thaumaturgic spell,” he muttered. “I’m sure I know the theory. I’ve studied it four times more than a normal apprentice.” Granted, it was because he had to retake them three times. “Statistically speaking, I should be a prodigy by now.”

Dubbie didn’t sit right away. She leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching him with that usual calm. With a slight tilt of her head, she replied, “I don’t think you should’ve gone to Thaumaturgic school, Fabri. You seem to have no faith in a discipline that requires faith.”

He opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it, and drank his tea instead.

Dubbie still didn’t move to sit. She just sipped her tea as she looked at him. After a moment, she asked, “What’s the mnemonic you were using?”

“Why?”

“I want to hear it.”

He rubbed his fingertips together, grounding through the familiar drag of skin against skin. It wasn’t obvious. He’d practiced making it subtle. But it helped. He then repeated the chant, a bit sheepishly.

“By spiral thought and silent flame,

Let hidden pattern show its name . . .”

She nodded. “Let me try that with Basic Seeking invocation.”

“I don’t think—”

“Move the way you remember,” she interrupted.

He stood and performed the sweeping spiral again, but he had unfortunately added the flair of someone very aware of being watched. “I don’t usually move like this,” he added as his fingers danced.

Dubbie watched quietly, then shook her head. “You’re adding too much fluff. Do they teach you that at school?”

“They teach us to add our own nuance.”

“Mm.” She set her mug down, stepped into the space he’d been standing, and adjusted her posture. Then, without preamble, she whispered the mnemonic under her breath and repeated the movement—not with flair, but with functional simplicity, the sort one might pick up from a Basics of Thaumistic Etiquette booklet in the local library.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then a soft blue flame kindled above her open palm.

It wavered and vanished a breath later.

Dubbie looked down at her hand, then shrugged and stepped back. “No veiled path for me, I guess.”

Fabrisse just stared.

“You—you’ve never even—how did you—?”

“It’s in those pamphlets they hand out during Guinoa Festivals,” she said, already picking her tea back up. “You’d know, if you came to things.”

He couldn’t stop staring at Dubbie. He could already picture her working in some quiet village outpost, helping with irrigation channels, lighting hearths with a snap of her fingers, healing little burns and cuts. The kind of mage people actually liked having around. Those kinds made good money.

Like Mom.

Except, like Mom, Dubbie had never cared much for money.

“You really should’ve gone to that school instead of me,” he muttered.

Dubbie took a long sip.

He sat forward, frowning into his tea like it had betrayed him. I can’t have a non-apprentice actually humiliating me like that. He set the mug down. “Alright. Once more.”

Dubbie raised an eyebrow. “Again?”

“I’m going to try it the way you did.”

He rose, rolled his shoulders, and took a steadying breath. “By spiral thought and silent flame,” he said again. “Let hidden pattern show its name!”

It was the simplest form, a slow circle of the forefinger over the heart, followed by a half-step back and a palm-raise. It was the same movement used in Thaumaturgic Initiation 1A, a basic rite taught to toddlers and first-years to poke at non-moving targets from a distance.

They taught it because it trained rhythm, restraint, and intent, the three things most apprentices lacked.

Instead, a soft tone pinged in his ears, and a rectangular glyph-panel snapped open with casual clarity: