Melody of Mana

The carriage that Jackson had rented was nothing particularly nice. The outside was clean and plain, with a coat of dark red paint and bare metal fixings. Inside was a bit nice, with cushioned seats and bars to hold onto while riding. I smoothed out the dress that I wore as I got in, looking over at my coworker for the evening.

I tried to begin conversation, but it died as soon as we left. This carriage had either no shocks, or very poor ones compared to a modern car and talking while being shaken so was near impossible. I was bounced mercilessly about as we passed down the cobbled streets, internally begging for an end to the jostling.

The fact was though that walking would have been completely impossible dressed as we were. We would have attracted far, far too much attention. I had no desire to get mugged, not that any mugger would have been able to take the two of us. It also kept us from getting dirty, something which was of great importance as we had to look presentable.

Eventually though we did arrive. It was still early, far too early for the party to have begun. Jackson was kind enough to lend me his hand as I was coming off of the steps of the carriage and towards the large house. Servants were running about preparing things. Several were cleaning everything they could get to, others were putting up decorations.

"So, am I not a bit young for this?"

"Certainly not. Larger events are reserved for those at or near adulthood, but this isn't quite of that level. These merchants want their daughters to attract rich noble husbands, so they tend to start them on the lower events of the party circuit around puberty. You will be among the younger girls here, but you definitely won't be the youngest."

"They're hiring us and this is a lesser event?"

"It's being put on by a merchant, not a noble. That alone puts it far lower in the rankings."

"Fair. Do the merchants often get their children married into noble households?"

"Depends on if the girl has any ability with mana. Lower ranking houses or those a few generations removed from the main family may allow it if not. If the kid is a caster though that changes things depending on how strong they are. Boys are almost never married in, even if they are skilled the best they could hope for is a position in a branch family."

"Good to know. What exactly are we doing tonight? Something specific I'd imagine?"

"I'm not actually sure on the specifics. The job explanation was for two mages able to do basic illusions. We'll find out when we meet the customer. Which should be right about..."

As we entered into the main door we were quickly greeted by what I could only assume was the customer. His eyes moved over us with joy first, but his brow furrowed as it settled upon me.

"Ah, you must be the caster I hired. I am Ulbert of the Minhousen Company, and you brought..." It seemed he believed that I was here for pleasure instead of business, something that would need to be corrected with haste.

"An apprentice. She is being trained by my teacher and comes highly recommended. She'll be helping me tonight." Jackson seemed to understand my feelings and his words put the man slightly more at ease.

"Ah I see, follow me please." He led us to a rather extravagant ballroom, easily large enough for two or three hundred people.

I was surprised at the display of money here. Building something like this in the middle of the capital had surely cost a fortune. Even if it had been around for some time I could imagine the cost would have been high just to maintain it.

The floors were well polished marble, white with small light gray inclusions flowing throughout. On the wall in brass sconces were lamps burning some kind of oil, odorless or very near from what I could smell. The ceiling was high for buildings I'd seen in this world, perhaps thirty feet. The chandeliers though were dark, and I saw no place for candle-holders on them.

"The first thing I need you to do is to put enough mana in these to keep them active for the party. After that our theme for the night is the coming of winter. If you have any ideas I'd love to hear them, but I was thinking something snow or ice themed along the ceiling."

It took only a moment for us to find the recharging location for the chandeliers and I filled them. Not much but enough certainly for a day. Jackson stood back while I did so, looking up and around. That alone seemed to mollify our employer.

"Thoughts on what we should do Alana, snow certainly."

"We could do some lightly rolling light clouds or a night sky on the ceiling. I could also probably modify a sound suppression bubble to mimic how snow muffles sound?"

"I would prefer a mix if possible," Ulbert declared.

"Very well then. Alana, handle the snow please, and the muffling if you don't mind."

"Certainly." I quickly hummed a tune to start up the spells.

Expanding the sound proof bubble and weakening it's effect to just a muffle wasn't that hard, nor was the actual snow illusion. Snowflakes always have been sort of indistinct unless you're very close, so mimicking them is fairly easy, even in a large area.

After examining how I had them moving Jackson brought in the clouds. It was a lightly rolling bank above us, with a few openings to a dark night. He even brought in a small faux moon that shone down upon us. It was like being outside on a snowy night, except warm, and dry.

"Oh, yes, yes this will do perfectly." He bounced on the balls of his feet slightly, his voice dying as it hit the walls of the room and my bubble. I was quite pleased with the effect.

Another man approached us. He wore the formal attire I would have associated with the rich, but stood very rigidly.

"Let me introduce the Master of Ceremonies for the night, Hugh, one of my most trusted retainers." Ulbert nodded to the other man, "Alas, I've other things I must prepare, please consult as needed."

Hugh seemed a nice enough man, if a bit rigidly formal. He gave us a list of the dances planned for the night and led us to a small room to the side where we could rest until the festivities began. We had a couple of hours now that our spells were decided on and the chandeliers charged, and it was important for us to have lots of mana so we could keep the illusions up into the night.

Jackson looked over the list of planned dances. "These are all fairly standard group dances. Looks like he mixed in about half for couples." He froze and looked over at me. "I don't suppose you know how these go?"

"Oh... no, no I don't."

"Okay, well, that's not the end of things. We'll run over them all real quick. If you're unsure just follow the directions and what others are doing. We're lucky you're young, if you were even a couple years older we'd have real problems."

He started with the dances for couples, since there were more of those than anything else. These were mercifully simple, owing to the fact that many of those present were likely to be either young or inexperienced. The style was sort of like a Viennese Waltz, though the order of steps was slightly different. I hadn't had much experience here, but I at least could process what I was doing. It took only a few minutes before he nodded, apparently satisfied.

"That will do for now. We'll work on these later if you want to join me for any more of these jobs, but for now it'll pass. Let's see..." He picked up the list, quickly going over it again. "When they call for Summer Flowers or Winter Flowers excuse yourself; those are too complex for me to teach you in the time we have. That leaves us with the Diamond, a Couple's Arch, and Twin Circles."

He had to lead me through these rather awkwardly, as they were truly dances for groups of size, some of it just didn't work with only two. Again we were lucky that this particular party was not from a noble house, as they would put on some truly complex ones.

The Diamond, as one might suspect, started out in a diamond formation of eight, with pairs moving in and around each other to move the whole group in a clockwise direction. It was repeated for the whole song, and was one of Jackson's favorites as far as ballroom things went.

A Couple's Arch was mostly walking elegantly, something I could at least passably do, and involved a lot of following those in front of me. It was the easiest being that I wouldn't be leading so it was just follow the leader and keep an eye on your dance partner. The couple who would lead would already be chosen, so there would be no issue.

Twin circles would take up most of the dance floor. Couples would form into concentric circles, moving outwards from the center. The first would be small and partners would face each other. Then another pair of rings would form outside of that, and another until all were involved. There was again much walking, though the timing of steps and their length was important to keep organized.

Merchants liked to act as if they were of the higher classes, and some had astounding fortunes, but when it came down to it magic was just too powerful. This meant that the nobility had far, far more time to practice overly complex social interactions. A merchant couldn't do that, they just had too many things to do. That meant they had to limit the types of dances they put on, a mercy in our case.

There were a few more rules that we had to go over as well. I was not to accept an invitation to dance more than once from a given man. I was unlikely to be asked, but to do so indicated a rather more than casual link between us. Only those near my age or having just reached adulthood should ask me to join them, but I was told to deny any older men who did. I was to try and socialize lightly with the other girls near the front of the room when dances were not being held, but topics were to be inane, like dresses and weather.

I was not under any circumstances to reveal that I was a caster keeping the illusions going. We were too highly ranked by parts of society to be considered servants, so everyone pretended that we were guests, and a guest wouldn't reveal such. Everyone knew we had been hired, but that was considered rude to actually acknowledge.

Finally there was a room to the side reserved for women and girls that would have some water, bathroom facilities, and a place to fix any hair/makeup/wardrobe issues. I couldn't hide in there all night though because my spells would start to falter if I didn't keep mana flowing into them at least periodically. It was a good place to retreat to when the dances I had to avoid were called for though.

We finished up with these basics about the time that Hugh reappeared, telling us that the guests were going to arrive shortly and we needed to reestablish the magic. We arrived just before the Ulbert's family, both direct and extended. It was considered good form for a few people to be in place before guests, and all was ready when the moment arrived.

The first wave of guests arrived in a large group, several of the girls let their eyes sparkle as they saw the illusions. One or two even tried to catch a snowflake on a daintily extended hand. It was good to feel appreciated.