Could we have a scene of Wraithvine, Amatu, Vee, and Pondermore teaching this young mage? I'd love to see how he teaches the mage, and the young mage stopping his former instructor, now turned tormentor, from ever killing again?
It's from this. @internutter/challenge-03504-i216-the-right-teacher
Forgive me, I saw you have Gikka there, so it would be those others and gentle Gikka, so Vee would be all grown up now, or maybe gone of old age herself? And I'm assuming Pondermore as well? At least be older, though I don't know about Amatu, since his power he might've ended up an immortal? -- Anon Guest
[AN: For those of you trying to wring a continuity out of my stories - good luck! But also, Lilbit (the cat) is Post-Amatu so we can presume that Pondermore, Amatu, and Vee have wandered off on their own adventures. I know for a fact that Rawr went home to Lower Petraine because Adventuring wasn't his Thing.]
They didn't have horses and Wraithvine seemed content to carry a cat on hir shoulders and a Kobold on hir patchwork hat. Though hir hardy Elven boots were wearing thin, that didn't stop hir weaving though trees on the ghost of a road to the middle of nowhere.
"Since time is of the essence, we shouldn't waste any of it tracking down leylines. I know one place that's a reliable junction. It barely moves an inch whenever there's a confluence conjunction."
"I have a divining stone for that," said Strodius, struggling to keep up. "It goes ping when there's stuff."
"Ho boy," said Gikka. "You depend on shit like that, you're going to get misseded."
"Kids these days," muttered Wraithvine. "Dependence on magical artefacts, crystals, wands, and smoke can only take you so far. If they are destroyed, consumed, or stolen, you are out of luck. Hence... leylines. Do you know how to see Auras?"
"I have a moonstone lens."
A heavy sigh as Gikka repeated, "Ho boy..."
"And if something like, say, a Spell of Shattering breaks it? What then?" Wraithvine paused to squint at the sky. "Ah. Left a bit." Ze veered off the road to the left. "If you can't find a ley-nexus by looking, always go to the places where lightning strikes often." This was denoted by a clearing in the woods, some burned remains of trees, and the hardier varieties of plants that thrived on char and ash. Wraithvine breathed deeply in the center of the scene. "Yes. Here."
Strodius took out his lens as he approached, only to have it plucked from his fingers by Gikka. "Hey!"
"Nuh-ah," chided the Kobold. "You're learning. Not using."
Something in his coat was pinging incessantly.
"And get rid of that," said Wraithvine. "Not only does it give away your position, but it's also distracting." Wraithvine was examining sticks in a bundle ze had gathered on the way. Picking off bark or rejecting some offhandedly. "I can show you a trick you can do with such gimcrack. Throw it in the air."
Strodius took the amulet off and tossed it up.
Wraithvine lifted one of the peeled twigs in one hand and said, "Feithiro." And the amulet exploded like a firework.
"HEY! That cost twenty gold!"
"Have you learned anything from that demonstration? Perhaps you should meditate on all that it took to do it. A stick of hazel wood," ze gestured with the twig, "a word, and a connection to the magic of the world."
"Every single one of Uphair the Endless' students has one of those." It dawned on him. If any were determined to defend their master, then... All it would take was a stick, a word, and a skill to end them then and there.
So many students wore the amulets next to their hearts.
He felt a chill running down his spine, and the intense compulsion to empty his pockets of everything he had depended upon until now.
"Ho boy," said Gikka. "That's a lot of gimcrack."
"And most of it useless." Wraithvine kicked it out of the circle formed by the hardiest of low-lying plants. "Stand here. Breathe, and unfocus your eyes. Let yourself drift away from the concerns of the body and the drive of the ego. Sense the world around you with everything you have."
Strodius did as he was told, and startled when the sky lit up with an enormous dancing star. He almost bolted, but the sky resumed being its normal self when he looked up. "What? What?"
"That was the Ley Nexus," said Wraithvine. "One of the more reliable ones. It's moved a little over the centuries, but it's still roughly in the same place."
On the perimeter of the clearing was a pile of old masonry that was once a mage's tower. If it had had a lightning rod, it was all gone to rust by now. Just like the tower was nothing more than a rotting stump of rubble.
"Mages like to stay near them, right? Build their towers close to them, or on them?"
"Perhaps not in the case of Uphair the allegedly endless. He wants to keep his students weak, dependent, and otherwise ignorant." Wraithvine handed over the hazel twig. "Peel the rest of the bark off of that. Be careful not to split or fracture it."
"Why?"
"You're using it as a wand," said the Kobold. "What happens to a magical focus when it's cracked?"
"Fireworks," answered Strodius, being very careful with the bark.
"For my next lesson, we must find a stream. I already have a jug," said Wraithvine.
Strodius had to wonder what kind of lesson that would be.
[Image by Robert Katzki on Unsplash]
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