The Dragon Queen of Thelvadore

I nodded at her suggestion, turning slightly to address the two women both.

“Good. Now, from what I can tell about this taint, it appears to be interfering with the natural recovery that you mentioned. Specifically, it appears to not only suppress attempts of his body to heal itself, but also to sever the connection between the body and the template needed to recover properly. And if what you said earlier is correct, then I fear that just removing it will only serve to worsen the situation, when his natural recovery kicks in and tries to heal without a guide.”

“Which means that we have to be very careful when trying to remove this taint you mentioned, yes?” Cecily asked, following along my logic.

“Yeah. Not only do you need to be slow and careful, Nyx might need to be ready to help nudge the body along the proper path. Can you influence in what way the healing works?”

The mage was silent for a moment, obviously lost in thought. When she finally replied, her voice was soft and focused. “Normal healing spells wouldn’t be able to influence how the body regrows. There are some who use different fundamentals, with which I might be able to, although while I do know one of those, I am lacking experience with it.”

“Hm…” That wasn’t as hopeful as I had hoped, although at least it meant we did have one option available to us, in case we needed it. That said, it was obvious that she would prefer not to go that route.

“Maybe you could just slow down the healing, until his body can connect to the template again? Or would we need to reforge that connection manually?” Cecily turned to look at the both of us.

I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. Theoretically, we shouldn’t need to, as this is just a minor taint serving as disruptance. His soul hasn’t been severed from his body, so on paper there is nothing that would prevent him from reforming that connection on his own. That said, I’m also not an expert on void magic, and I can’t be certain that there aren’t other mechanisms with which I’m not familiar with.”

“Perhaps you can tell me how to sense the magic first, then I can see if I can’t find anything. I do know a bit more about it, after all.”

That made sense, and I nodded my agreement. “Alright. Uhm…”

I scratched my cheek for a moment, trying to think of a way to properly explain what I felt. It was quite weird and hard, given that magical senses weren’t quite like mundane ones, even if they were similar in many ways. That made finding the right words a bit tricky, since I was missing a good bit of the more magically focused vocabulary.

“Okay, so… Remember how you start with your magic? How you don’t channel it through yourself, but will it into existence within your blade? In some ways, this taint feels somewhat similar to how your blade does when infused with your magic, just… less intense. Instead of looking for a raging wildfire, you should try to focus on the small little embers. Likely, it will be easier for you to try and look for something that isn’t there. Void is the absence of magic, after all. Think of it as a puzzle to which you don’t have all the pieces. Even if you don’t know what that piece looks like exactly, you can infer certain things about it from the surrounding pieces that you do have.”

Cecily nodded in concentration, although she didn’t reply otherwise. I watched her for a moment, then frowned, feeling like my explanation was wholly inadequate. At the same time, though, I wasn’t quite sure what else to do, so I gave her a few minutes to hopefully try and find it on her own.

Sadly, though, it appeared that my explanations were insufficient after all. After maybe ten minutes or so, Cecily sighed, rubbing her temples. From her expression it was clear she hadn’t gotten any closer to success. Which, to be fair, probably was to be expected. Magic was certainly not an easy thing, and even the most talented mages would take entire lifetimes to learn the ins and outs of their chosen field.

I was the odd one out, in that regard. I was quite literally cheating, in more ways than one. Not only did I already know the basics of how the magic system functioned, even if I struggled to put it into words, I had the knowledge of one of the world’s foremost mages I could siphon from.

Really, now that I thought about it, it had been a bit unfair to expect Cecily to grasp things this quickly. If magic was hard, Void magic was borderline impossible to grasp for most. Again, the only reason I could even sense it, was that the taint was not particularly powerful and the attacks hadn’t in any way tried to be subtle or shield themselves. It allowed me to simply power my way through.

Cecily didn’t have that. Even with her natural affinity for the void.

I sighed, rubbing my face with my hands, before I let my arms fall. “Sorry, Cecily. I really shouldn’t have expected you to grasp this so easily. I took all of this far too lightly, it seems.”

The two women turned to me. Nyx’ expression was the same as always, but Cecily looked… It was a weird mix between ashamed, offended, and resigned. I couldn’t fault her for it. Given how I acted up until now, she likely thought that I considered her to incompetent for the task, even if I said that void magic was hard.

“That said, we do need to deal with this, and relatively soon. I just don’t know how.” I turned back to the man in front of us, not quite seeing him as I lost myself in thoughts.

“You said that this… void is the absence of magic, yes?” Nyx’ voice quickly pulled me back out of my thoughts, and I turned to the woman.

“Yes? We call it Void magic, but technically it isn’t magic in the same sense everything else is. The void is antithetical to magic. The polar opposite. It is the antimatter to magic’s matter.” The looks I got made it clear that they had no idea what I was talking about with that last part, and I quickly waved it off. “It eats, or maybe it would be more accurate to say, erases all traces of magic. It’s why it’s so dangerous to use it, especially with traditional spellcasting. Channeling void magic through your body is a surefire way to magically filet yourself.”

“Then what would happen if we were to channel some of our mana through his body? The same way you’d do during magical control exercises? Even if Lady Cecily can’t feel the taint, she should be able to notice the mana vanishing, no?”

I stared at the strange woman, thoughts racing for a long moment. Then a loud slap rang out when the palm of my hand met my face.

“I’m such a fucking moron.” Taking a deep breath, and slowly letting it out, I shook my head. “How the fuck did I not think of that? Sorry. Anyway, yes. That should work.”

Truth be told, I was embarrassed as all hell. It was such a simple and easy solution, yet I had completely missed it. So much for being an ancient and wise dragoness. I suppose I could cut myself some slack, given that in reality this was all new to me. At the same time, though, I had taken charge of the situation as if I was the only one with the correct answer. And I had utterly embarrassed myself.

Oh well. No point in dwelling over it.

Thankfully, Nyx and Cecily had ignored my byplay, instead turning back to the patient. Unsurprisingly, Nyx was the one to start channeling mana through his body. Probably for the best, considering that void was the stuff we wanted to remove, not kill him with.

Cecily’s senses still weren’t as sharp as my own, but this time it only took her a couple of minutes before she started to get a sense for the rough outline of the taint. She and Nyx were muttering to each other, exchanging notes, and making sure they didn’t miss anything.

I kept my cakehole shut and just let them work.

It became clear pretty fast that they were taking their time, which I commended them for. We weren’t in that much of a rush, and it was better to be careful with that kind of thing. And so time went by.

At the end of the first hour, they had thoroughly screened two of the patients, likely trying to prevent false positives. Only then did they return to the first one, and Cecily actually began to try and manipulate the taint. I would’ve expected the time spent waiting to be boring, but in actuality, it gave me a very good idea of how other mages went about using their magic, which in turn helped me get a better grasp of my own capabilities.

I also spent a good chunk of that time mentally experimenting with my shadow clones. I didn’t actually summon any, but I did go through various possible variants of the spell, trying to perfect my own. Of course, this didn’t help me get any closer to actually finding a way to make them semi-sentient in any way, but it was still a worthwhile exercise, and it kept me occupied.

I returned my attention back to the two mages, when Cecily started to gently poke at the taint. From what I could feel her doing, it was pretty clear that she still wasn’t able to properly perceive the taint itself, working simply with the sense of absence she got. Still, it worked well enough for her purposes. Soon, the first, and smallest, bit of taint slowly shifted and vanished.

Curiously, the first tiny bit she removed she absorbed into herself. Generally speaking a good idea when trying to learn more about a bit of magic, although, given that it was void magic we were talking about, not necessarily advisable in this instance. Of course, Cecily knew that as well, and after the first small fraction had been absorbed, she simply dissipated the rest.

Okay, I say simply. It took her about ten minutes for the small gash. Not exactly the fastest, and definitely not as easy as I made it sound, but it was a success, and that was what mattered the most.

“Congratulations,” I offered when she sat back with a sigh.

“Thank you.” She gave me a small smile. “But it’s too early to celebrate. At the current pace, it might take a day or two before we are done.”

“Don’t rush yourself. I’m sure Mister Shaltein would rather spend an additional day or two here, then to see any of them permanently scarred.” To my surprise, even Nyx gave Cecily a small smile. It was a fleeting thing, but still noticeable enough.

“Yeah. Talking about that, if you don’t need me, I can go give him the good news.”

The two thought for a moment, then nodded. I nodded in turn, and made to leave. When I got to the door, though, a sudden idea struck me, and I paused, silently weaving a spell under my breath. I could jump to any shadow anywhere, but having a marked spot made it easier. Summoning a shadow clone would draw attention, and while that wasn’t necessarily an issue, I didn’t see the point in making a spectacle when a far more subtle spell also did the trick.

This way I could immediately return, in case of emergency. It might have been a bit too paranoid, but I decided it was better safe than to be sorry. With my preparations now complete, I finally left to find the man in question.

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