Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent

The curtains of Fabrisse’s dorm room were drawn tight. The desk had been cleared, and the scrolls had been stacked into a neat tower beside a jar of glyph quills. In the center lay three smooth pebbles, washed, dried, roughly uniform. He’d spent fifteen minutes choosing them from the Southern Edge path this morning, all the while muttering to himself. He’d even sent a message to Rolen regarding the skitterwhit incident, just so he could stop thinking about it. Rolen hadn’t replied.

Across the room, Greg Johnson hadn’t looked up once from his cot. He was lying sideways with a blanket over his head, holding a pamphlet titled ‘Mimetic Binding Theory for People Who Hate Mimetic Binding Theory.’

“Starting a religion?” Greg asked. Greg had never been out of the room without institutional duress.

“It’s called methodical testing,” Fabrisse muttered.

Greg didn’t answer.

Fabrisse reached for his multiple robe pockets. From it, he withdrew the Silvial Quartz and set it gently out of range, on the windowsill. Then came everything else—his stone satchel, the basic balm, his scratch notes, even the backup teacup (chipped)—cleared and stuffed into a drawer. He couldn’t afford any distractions or rogue resonances.

Only the three Trinav Quartz remained. Four, to be exact, but he couldn’t activate the fourth one, so he decided to put that one away as well.