Ar'Kendrithyst

The pair of them had moved outside of the house, to a plot of grasslands south of Quilatalap’s cottage, a little over a kilometer away. It was a nice place, with rolling green hills and scattered trees. It was a daunting area, though, for just a little bit away rose the 30 kilometer crystal cliffs that bounded the southern edge of the Palace District. Intellectually, those cliffs were so tall and so large that they seemed to be directly above, ready to crush down at any second. But the rainbow auroras hanging in the air blocked most of that enormity from sight. Thanks to those pretty lights, it was easy to put out of mind all of the danger looming all around.

And then there was magic, to completely distract him from the daily trauma of living in this land.

So let’s just forget about the impending deaths and destruction for a little while.

Quilatalap had offered to fill some deficiencies in Erick’s repertoire, and Erick had readily accepted. So here they were.

Quilatalap asked, “Have you made much ‘tricking magic’?”

“Not really, but!” Erick enthusiastically said, “It’s really quite interesting that you can trick the Script into cutting the spells of another mage— No. Wait…” Erick asked, “Is that what is happening with tricking magic?”

Quilatalap smiled. “The Script isn’t as limiting as some people would have you believe. At its heart, the Script is about chopping down highs and evening out lows, and streamlining spellwork. Tricking magic has also been streamlined to a certain degree, but tricking magic itself is as old as magic, and it hasn’t changed much since the Darkness first helped us to learn the first spells.”

“Right! Okay. Well. I have done some of this tricking magic before.” Erick popped out a few blue boxes, saying, “I learned about these [Intent Understanding] and [Spell Breaker] from another. And then I made this [Grand Dispel] from some of that.”

Quilatalap raised an eyebrow as he looked upon [Grand Dispel]. “This one. This is a good spell.” He dismissed the boxes, saying, “You won’t be able to make a [Grand Dispel] much better without going deep into Blood Magic or Wizardry. Your multiplier could have been larger, but you have a chaining sort-of [Dispel] instead. Don’t try to remake that; you’ll never get better. It’s really strong.” He said, “But, that said, [Grand Dispel] seems like an end-stage magic, to me. You might be able to work some higher spells out of that eventually, but don’t try for those today. Today, we’ll do the rest of these tricky [Dispel]s with [Spell Breaker] as the base magic.

“You’re going to want to make eight spells.

“Six spells, one spell aligned against each element, using the respective Elemental Shape. What you do is you take your [Stoneshape], for instance, invert it, and then attach it to your [Spell Breaker]. You will be decreasing [Spell Breaker]’s versatility of working against any small magic, to instead fully meld with all Stone-derived magics. As a word of caution: for any normal spell, this resulting ‘[Stone Breaker]’ will work just fine. For specialty spells, like when facing someone with a [Domain of Stone], you will have trouble making [Stone Breaker] work.

“These first six spells aren’t very great for the simple fact that a boulder thrown at you is still a boulder thrown at you. But a [Stone Breaker] against a spell-empowered wall of stone will destroy that wall of stone for much less than any other option. A [Grand Fireball], packed with a hundred [Force Bombs] and flying at your face, can be turned into a puff of flame with a properly made [Fire Breaker].

“Etcetera. Etcetera.

“The seventh spell is [Force Breaker]. The first six spells are easy to make, but this one is a complicated little spell. For this one, I recommend inverting [Force Wall], [Envelop Item], [Conjure Armor], and [Conjure Weapon], because those four spells are the most [Dispel] resistant Force spells in the Script, and the ability to strip a melee attacker of their weapons and defenses is often necessary.

“The eighth spell is [Ward Destruction]. Now this one is truly complicated, for [Ward] is among the most complicated spells out there, simply because it is so varied. I suggest trying this spell after you figure out everything there is to make with the base [Ward] spell, and more than a few other [Elemental Breaker] spells. You will know you have figured [Ward] out, when you are able to make a good version of every kind of [Ward] described in that way-too-big blue box.

“When you get to that point, then you just invert all of those various ideas into one coherent whole, and combine it with [Spell Breaker]. Thus, you will get [Ward Breaker].

“None of these spells should cost you more than 50 mana, if you’ve made them right. But they will be… What tier is your [Spell Breaker]? Tier four?”

“Tier four,” Erick said.

“So a thousand days to try again if you get any of these spells wrong.” Quilatalap said, “The only one that is truly necessary is [Ward Breaker]. You’re going to want to know every part of that spell before you try for that one. Better to spend a year experimenting, and then get it right, instead of almost three years in downtime.”

Erick thought for a moment. He asked, “So when you say ‘Invert’, what does that mean, exactly?” He added, “Also: Is there some way to [Teleport Spell]? I wanted [Spelleport] for the longest time, and if anything is tricking magic, that should certainly qualify.”

Quilatalap smirked, then said, “Inversion of a magic is rather simple to understand, now that you have a [Mana Sight]. And one small hint. I’ll see if you get it with [Mana Sight] before I divulge the hint.” He held out one hand to the side, “Watch this with your [Mana Sight].”

Erick turned on [Mana Sight], and saw the dense spells upon Quilatalap, like a layer of gravity upon his skin, and upon the world. And then Quilatalap cast.

In the palm of his hand, Quilatalap popped a [Ward]. He hadn’t called it as such, and the spell was invisible to normal sight, but to Erick’s [Mana Sight], and compared to his knowledge of what magic looked like what, Quilatalap had conjured a dense sphere of power that was unmistakably a [Ward]. The archlich moved his hand to the side of the dense space. He conjured a void.

Erick stared for a few moments. “Huh. It’s an inverted [Ward], correct?”

“Correct.” Quilatalap waited with a small smile on his face. His lower fangs showed, a little. “But that doesn’t tell you anything, does it?”

“… No.” Erick sadly agreed.

Erick turned his attention back to the void, trying to understand.

Calling it a ‘void’ was perhaps not correct. Quilatalap had already provided the words for such an item. It was an inverted [Ward]. Simple! Except… Not quite so simple.

Erick held out his own hand, and channeled mana through [Ward]. A sphere of white light held above his hand, sounding much like an edge. A demarcation, where the world was slightly different inside, than it was on the outside.

Erick held out his other hand, and channeled mana through [Ward], but… differently. It was an attempt at… At something else. White light flickered from his hand, and instantly became one with the surrounding mana. Like he was dropping ink into a world of bleach; the mana flowed away, reshuffling itself back into the manasphere.

No. That was incorrect. It wasn’t… It wasn’t destructive enough.

Oh!

It was Destruction!

That’s why [Ward Destruction] was called [Ward DESTRUCTION]! It was the Destruction Esoteric Element!

Or… Was it?

Erick had never touched a Destruction spell before. He had certainly read of them, though. So he tried what he had read, using the barest bit of Mana Altering, and condensed a breaking of the world into his mind, and into his magic.

A globe of flexed gravity took hold of the air; a denial of existence. A breaking. A Destruction.

“Huh.” Erick said, “Destruction mana?”

“Yes!” Quilatalap enthusiastically said, “You got it! You figured out the secret!” He strongly added, “Don’t try to actually use Destruction in a spell. You will kill yourself.”

Erick eyed his hand that he had just channeled Destruction from. “Uh… Okay.”

Quilatalap noticed, and said, “Channeling Destruction isn’t that bad. It’s like channeling Fire mana; that won’t actually hurt you.”

“… Right.” Erick had channeled Fire mana before, and it hadn’t hurt. He did so right then, producing a prominence of flame without actual heat.

“See! All good. Just don’t make a Destruction spell.” Quilatalap returned to being enthusiastic, as he laughed, and said, “That’s the secret to inverting spells. You combine the starter spell with Destruction, and you end with something attuned to the spell you want, but inverted.”

“Huh.” Erick looked at his hand, and channeled Destruction, producing a mana prominence that was more world-breaking white, than normal white. Archmage Opal had never spoken of Destruction mana, but then again, he hadn’t heard of that particular ‘element’ until well outside of his time at Oceanside. He looked to the two orbs still present in the air beside Quilatalap, and asked, “You do magic a lot differently than they do at the arcanaeums, and elsewhere.” He added, “All the Elements. And No math.”

“Math is useful for describing the world, but magic is more than the math.” Quilatalap said, “Magic is communion with the greater self to enact a change upon the world.” He added, “More cynically, magic is all about creating impressions in the manasphere, filling those impressions with your power, and enabling those impressions to do what you want them to do. Some people come to magic through math. Some don’t. No way is wrong.” He added, “But one thing is always true: In all my understanding of magic, the systems of mathemagic, the elemental systems, harmonic, spiritual, ritual, formation, talisman, tree-based, soul-based, or any other… When a person finds a way that works for them, if they continue along that path, then things usually work out for them.”

Erick listened, and then he acted.

He channeled a few inversions from his hands, listening to their Destruction, and their desire to break what had been whole. And then he cast to the left, flashing a breaking into the world. There was no target, because Erick didn’t need one for this.

And it worked. The ideology behind the first six spells was easy to understand. One blue box appeared. And then, with five more casts, each twenty seconds apart, came five more boxes.