Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

“How exactly would that metaphor work in regards to golems? Would they just be a bigger box with different stuff inside of it or would they be a bunch of small boxes stacked together that each do their own specific thing in conjunction?”

“Interested in golems are you? Well to be honest I don’t really know much about enchanting or golemancy by extension, but I do know that your second metaphor is more accurate to what a golem would be. They are made up of many moving parts, those moving parts are usually treated as separate objects during the enchanting process mostly for mana consumption reasons, but also for the little functions like built in weapons.”

To illustrate his point Lydus conjured up some water that he used to demonstrate what he meant, he showed a very simple golem shape and separated the limbs from the torso.

“I also know when it comes to really complex things like speaking it isn’t even built into the golem itself, they just draw from an enchanted construct and output the words that fit the situation best. There is also a certain range that such contraptions work in, outside it just doesn’t work. So if you do ever get into golemancy don’t have something like that be essential to the function, because it will eventually fail somehow.”

Arthur nodded along while he listened and thought about what Lydus was saying. ‘Maybe that is what I was missing with my own golemancy experiments. I treated the whole golem as one single thing that needed to be enchanted in one sitting. Perhaps if I did each limb one at a time I could achieve a better result by putting more time into each part.’

The conversation eventually moved onto other things and then eventually ended as Arthur left to attend his daily lesson with Henry in hydromancy.

*********

“So when do you think you will be taking the test to become an evoker? You do meet the requirements and the recommendations to do so after all.” Henry asked Arthur as he messed with his student’s control over several of the spheres of water he was controlling through the room.

“I don’t know honestly, though it will be soon. I would like to try and reach the peak of apprentice level in all four of the evocations before I try though. Do you think that is something reasonable to do or should I just do it as soon as possible?” Arthur asked as he quickly pushed off his teacher’s attempt at disruption and held steady.

“I wouldn’t say it is out of the question, but it would definitely take a little while longer for that to happen even with your well above average learning speed. The only way to do that by the end of the month would be to receive more lessons from me everyday, and I don’t think I can speak on behalf of your financial situation for you.”

“Well that shouldn’t be all that much of a problem.” Arthur wavered for a moment as he spoke leaving a small opening that Henry happily took advantage of to push his student further. This forced Arthur to spend a half minute correcting this problem before he could finish answering. “I do earn quite a bit of money, and I have been making potions for the city guard and been paid quite well for it. Having longer and more lessons with you wouldn’t be outside of my possibilities.”

********

Several hours later Arthur was sitting at the table with Gaelin eating dinner. Today he decided to make a soup with a few extra ingredients that he figured that Gaelin would enjoy for his orientation day. While Arthur looked rather happy with his day Gaelin looked tired, almost like he didn’t sleep at all the night before.

“So what courses did you decide to take? When I started in the guild I chose pyromancy and aeromancy because those were the two I didn’t know anything of yet.”

“I did the same. That was what the instructor recommended we do that was there to help us out with course selection. I've heard you talk about them before but I haven’t actually seen you use them either often. Could you maybe show me what they are like so I'm not entirely in the dark?” Arthur smiled at this simple request, surprisingly Gaelin had never once asked to see his perform magic of any type that wasn’t for lessons.

Presenting both his open hands to his apprentice he began to use both pyromancy and aeromancy each in one hand. Quickly shaping them both into a ball shape he spun them around for Gaelin to get a good look at, the exhausted look on his face slowly disappearing and being replaced with a childlike joy that occasionally showed on his face.

Despite this happiness Arthur was soon forced to dispel the magic so that he could eat his soup to the disappointment of Gaelin. “Don’t worry, before long you will be able to do what I can. And when you are done with your lessons at the end of the day I will teach you a few tricks to help you along, things that I had to figure out the hard way.”

Gaelin gave a small nod and began eating his soup at a reasonable pace compared to the minimal effort he was previously putting into it.

*********

Over the course of the month of Opal, the second month of winter, Gaelin gave his all towards his courses and learning as much as he could regarding pyromancy and aeromancy. He had two different teachers than Arthur did during this time, Arthur suspected it was something the mages within the guild would periodically do or had a schedule for throughout the year. Gaelin did make significant progress during this time, with Arthur’s help he managed to learn how to conjure up earth and fire. Aeromancy was the only evocation that was giving Gaelin significant trouble.

Arthur continued his lessons with Henry that were now everyday and twice as long, with this change in schedule he managed to achieve apprentice rank mastery in hydromancy and pyromancy and signed up for the rank advancement test that would take place on the first of Obsidian, the third month of winter.

Even Calavia was making progress, though not specifically in her magical abilities. The trauma she experienced at the old ruin she briefly spoke of that destroyed any desire for mercenary work wasn’t quite as strong as it once was, so she started to practice her combative magic in little sparring matches with Arthur every so often. This gave Arthur some actual experience in fighting another mage and helped Calavia regain some of her rusty magic skills. This was also when Arthur learned that Calavia was specialized in pyromancy and was quite skilled in fire related combat magic, she promised to teach Arthur a few tier three pyromancy spells once he became an evoker.

Eventually the First of Opal arrived and Arthur went to the mages guild to take the test. The test was scheduled for noon of that day and would take place in room number 50, it was a bit of a walk through the underground portion of the guild so Arthur left at 10:45 to make sure that he would have enough time to reach the guild and the room with some spare time incase something happened.

He arrived at the room at 11:45 and found that someone else was already inside taking their own test with three instructors testing whoever it was on what Arthur believed to be the apprentice advancement test, the test where you become an apprentice ranked mage.

The test continued on for another ten minutes where Arthur’s suspicions were basically confirmed by the tasks that the young mage was given being practically identical to those he needed to do for his apprentice advancement test. Shortly after the young mage eagerly excited the room with a piece of paper proving their advancement, Arthur was able to see that the young mage was in fact a dwarven woman wearing a light brown robe that wouldn’t be uncommon amongst the common folk.

Shortly after a high elven man exited from the room and saw Arthur was waiting. “Are you waiting for an advancement test?” Arthur nodded and the elf smiled. “Very good then, please come inside then and fill out the forms on the table.” Arthur entered the room and quickly walked over to the table where the forms were. There were four pages that went over the risks of an advancement test and how by signing he would be consenting to the risks.

Using the ink from the provided ink pot Arthur used his hydromancy to sign the forms and handed them to the high elven man who appeared to be the one in charge of the tests today.

“Very good Mr… Arthur. Just allow me to check today's schedule and be sure that you are on it.” The elven man opened up a leather bound book that looked even more expensive than the one he bought as a journal by a long shot. Soon the man smiled and put his book away. “Ah, yes. Arthur of Dom Badaher scheduled for an Evoker advancement test at 12:00 this morning. My name is Akkar and I will be conducting the test for you today.”

With a wave of his hands the table and all other furniture folded up and was pressed up against the lower walls of the room while the two other instructors within the room moved to a combative position against Arthur. “As you can see we will be testing your combative capabilities as well as your magical skills. For what you will be learning and have access to as an evoker the kingdom wants to be certain that you can defend such information and yourself. Do you have any questions for me?”

“No, I don’t.” Arthur said as he raised his hands while preparing himself to conjure up a shield to defend himself when the two instructors before him cast offensive spells.

“Very well then, the test will begin in ten seconds. Please prepare accordingly.” Akkar said as he brought out a circular object that looked like a very small clock with two metal pieces on the top. After doing something to the small clock it began making ten ticking sounds that were quite annoying, when those ten ticks stopped the metal pieces started to make a very loud ringing sound caused by something hitting them both very quickly.

When the two instructors heard this they quickly conjured up a basic attack towards Arthur who blocked them both with a conjured earth shield. Arthur quickly reconstructed his shield into several dagger sized projectiles and sent half towards each instructor with the purpose of distracting them for a follow up attack with his favorite tier two spell involving a large earth spike.

Since he was putting his focus towards casting a spell he didn’t have the mental strength to control any of the earth projectiles outside of their initial direction, this made it quite easy for the instructor to block or avoid the attack and begin preparing their own spells. But it gave Arthur enough time to get through most of the casting involving the hand signs and arcane words to keep it stable. With his large earth spike created he began casting the Tri Earth Bolt spell a few times to create some proper projectiles to use against his opponents to keep them occupied instead of attacking, but with two opponents instead of one it was hard to keep them both on the defense.

Whenever Arthur put some of his focus towards one of them the other took the opportunity to send a few projectiles his way that forced him to either block or dodge. Blocking would slow his attacking but protect him from any further attacks, and dodging would keep him from slowing while doing nothing to the rhythm of his opponents.

Slowly Arthur was being pushed into a corner, he didn’t notice it at first as the room they were in was quite large with lots of room to move around in. But he was a lot closer to the back wall close to where the door to the room was. ‘If this keeps up I won’t have anywhere to go. If I can’t go anywhere I will not last very long.’

Thankfully Arthur was also a very quick learner, he managed to figure out that both his opponents favored pyromancy spells above all other types. There was the occasional geomancy or hydromancy spell, but the vast majority of those he blocked or dodged were pyromancy and were no higher than tier two spells. ‘They must be holding back because I haven’t learned anything past tier two yet, good for a test in theory but these two are definitely far more experienced than I am.’

Arthur looked around the room for something that could be used as a distraction to use the earth spike he had been keeping but everything not a part of the room itself was folded up and against the walls. ‘Looks like I am going to need to do something drastic. Since they are mages I am betting that they don’t have the best physical capabilities, this would give me an advantage in a close range fight if I can close the distance without taking every hit they can dish out at me. At that range they would just need to worry about shooting at me instead of aiming with precision.’

Ready to enact his plan Arthur quickly conjured up a large earth wall that was more than enough to block the view of himself from the instructors who were now pelting him with fire bolts. When the wall was suddenly conjured they stopped for a second before bringing out stronger spells in an attempt to bring it down. But by the time they left any noticeable holes in it Arthur had already finished preparing and bursted out covered by earth armor he conjured and with several earth bolts in each of his hands.

Rushing towards the nearest instructor Arthur used the earth bolts in his left hand and mentally commanded them to fly towards them while he commanded the bolts in his right hand towards the other instructor. Surprised by this sudden change in his strategy the closest instructor barely managed to block the earth bolts before Arthur closed the distance.