Lorvan walked beside him back to his dorm, determined not to give Fabrisse the satisfaction of blaming time for his stress. They passed the Hall of Copper Stars, two empty fountains, and the statue of Pelrian the Arbitrary, who had once banned footwear inside lecture halls for reasons still unknown. Fabrisse remained quiet throughout.
After a while, Lorvan said, “You’re unusually silent.”
Fabrisse had been staring at his new, hard-earned spell, Cindermark. It had taken him t...
2025-07-18 18:36:27 +0000 UTC
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“I’m going to show you this spell. Let’s see how good your intuitive understanding of Thaumaturgy Spellcasting is,” Rolen said as he extended one hand, palm open, the other resting lightly behind his back.
Fabrisse stared, trying to track every detail. The angle of the arm, the steadiness of breath, the fractional delay before ignition. It’s a bit similar to Severa’s Basic Combustion Funnel. However, there was no whisper of a mnemonic, no incantation at all.
2025-07-18 08:26:42 +0000 UTC
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She stood just inside the gate, silent enough that her presence hadn’t even registered on the perimeter alarm thread.
He flinched slightly. “How long have you been standing there?”
She tilted her head a fraction. “Mentor Lorvan requires your assistance.” She hadn’t answered his question, which just made him more aware of how sweaty his palms were and how ridiculous he must’ve looked lobbing pebbles at a scarecrow like he was trying to offend it into submission.
2025-07-17 08:57:29 +0000 UTC
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“You will not get to know who’s been protecting you,” Inside his room again, Rolen said as he walked past a perfectly good set of chairs and instead perched sideways on the edge of a bookshelf like a contemplative cat.
“B-but why?” Fabrisse asked. He sat on the same seat he did last time he was in Rolen’s room, only that this time there was no need to touch his nose. Lorvan, silent as a shadow, had also taken his seat, again near the emerald ball game table.
Role...
2025-07-17 07:49:24 +0000 UTC
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“What you saw was Subduction Glyph,” Lorvan said. “Advanced Darkness Thaumaturgy. It displaces the space beneath a target’s feet and pulls them through a shadow fold. Shields don’t always stop it unless they’re specifically tuned to collapse barriers.”
They were in Lorvan’s quarters, a room so precise it felt more like a meditation chamber than a living space. The walls were unadorned stone, smooth and pale, the kind that absorbed light without ever seeming cold...
2025-07-16 07:19:25 +0000 UTC
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The Moonbear Room wasn’t marked by a placard, nor did it bear any wards at the entrance that a normal student could see. It simply existed, tucked behind the western observatory dome where dusklight pooled like slow-spilling ink across the marble.
Fabrisse followed the Kairon up a curving corridor until they reached a door that looked like frosted glass, though it neither shone nor reflected anything. Kairon gestured once. The door dissolved, like salt melting in warm water.
2025-07-15 20:13:25 +0000 UTC
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The date had been set for his Synaptic Resonance practical retake: two weeks from now, on Tuesday. And Fabrisse had become increasingly confident he’d be able to fully recognize the basic synaptic thread in time.
[Basic Synaptic Thread Recognition: 40% Progress]
The fact that he could track his improvements tangibly did wonders for his confidence. If he could keep up this diligence for the next two weeks, he’d get there. He even got some more gains with his ex...
2025-07-15 16:25:50 +0000 UTC
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“This,” Lorvan said as he adjusted his stance. His coat fluttered in the breeze, lined with glowing wards that darkened at the seams.
“is Synaptic Threading, Rank I. Mastering this is the first step towards casting under pressure.”
He raised his right arm in a wide arc that narrowed as it looped until his fingers hovered just above his shoulder line. No spell ignited, but Fabrisse felt a ripple of tension that passed his skin.
Fabrisse stood a few pace...
2025-07-14 16:29:11 +0000 UTC
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He still needed to practice his Stupenstone Fling, but with Liene gone, there were no more moving targets. He wasn’t about to start flinging rocks at the frogs loitering near the North Pond either. That would just be rude and karma-inducing. He didn’t believe in karma, but he believed in not harming amphibians.
Let’s return to the dorm room first and see if I can manufacture a moving target.
So, he trudged back toward his dormitory, fingers absently brushing the agg...
2025-07-14 01:06:09 +0000 UTC
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The swirling gale around Cuman deepened to a furious howl. The magic condensed into a tight spiral behind him, sharp and glowing with a coral-tinted red. He was pissed off.
He chanted, a long and impractical mnemonic,
“By fracture of breath and spiral of storm, I carve the lawless path through calm. Rend, lash, unform!”
That didn’t even rhyme . . .
It probably wasn’t the brightest idea while his attacker was supercharging his spell, but Fabrisse felt a...
2025-07-13 10:55:13 +0000 UTC
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“And then she said, ‘have him be under my tutelage’,” Fabrisse spread his palms, trying to physically recreate the scene and failing to do so.
Liene, dressed like a normal student, sprawled sideways on the bench across from him with one leg dangling off the armrest, raised an eyebrow. “Look at you. Hottest prospect in the Synod overnight. You realize you’ve become a full-blown headline, right?”
Fabrisse groaned. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m surprised ...
2025-07-11 22:12:08 +0000 UTC
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The entrance to Headmaster Draeth’s office wasn’t a door so much as a threshold in space that refused to be observed directly. One moment, Fabrisse was walking down a plain stone hallway lined with student achievement plaques and buzzing sconce-crystals, and the next, the temperature rose by five degrees and the air forgot how to carry sound.
The archway ahead shone with an angry crimson, Draeth’s favorite color. A plaque beside it read, in very tasteful serif runes: “Kn...
2025-07-11 14:45:53 +0000 UTC
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Fabrisse had clicked on ‘Request More Information’ on his way home, and he had spent his entire journey thinking about what he’d read.
[Comparative Tuning Methodologies – Summary Overview]
Note: Some branches conflict with others. Accepting a Questline may foreclose alternatives.
• Leyline Tuning (Environmental Sync)
– Aligns personal aether rhythm with natural leyfield flow.
– Ben...
2025-07-11 08:53:51 +0000 UTC
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Fabrisse had once wished his fellow students would no longer call him The Chosen One or Wet Goblin behind his back. Today, his wish had been granted.
Unfortunately, they had simply come up with something worse.
“Oh look. It’s the petal hugger!” Someone stage-whispered from under the shade of the east archway as he walked past the campus courtyard.
“I heard he has problems with uncontrolled touching of other people,” another voice chimed in from a study table in a t...
2025-07-10 20:10:20 +0000 UTC
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Fabrisse’s heartbeat surged. He didn’t know if they were ahead. He didn’t care.
He just wanted to reach it.
Liene gasped. Fabrisse immediately felt a hitch in the current. A stumble in the spell’s momentum. The petal wobbled on its final arc, as though the slipstream had faltered beneath it.
She was reaching her limit.
This kind of harmonic casting drained from the steady stream of FP, if he remembered the description of the spell from the System correctl...
2025-07-10 18:16:04 +0000 UTC
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As the second vessel was sealed and cleared away, the final bowl was brought forward on a raised stone pedestal etched in newer, less-worn runes. The third vessel had no visible latch or lining. Its crystal was pale, almost translucent, with an odd sheen that refracted like a bubble’s skin. It looked unused. Or maybe untouched.
Severa stepped into the ring again. Her tone dropped half a key. “Third verse will begin in ten counts. Prepare your petals.”
The students m...
2025-07-10 18:12:56 +0000 UTC
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Severa’s staff struck once more, signaling the closing of the first round and the beginning of the next.
“All recipients clear the sanctum,” she called, her voice echoing with trained ritual precision. “Second verse initiates in ten counts. Participants—ready your petals.”
Around the circle, students bent over the silver basin once more, collecting a new round of starpetals and microglow quills. The ritual ink shimmered faintly violet this time, and the petals were sma...
2025-07-10 15:56:38 +0000 UTC
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The first verse ended. The petal throwers bowed in solemn unison like synchronized swans. Fabrisse, off-beat by half a second, nearly tripped on his own robe.
Severa raised her staff. “As is tradition,” she intoned, “we begin the rite of Benedictional Grace.”
Before anyone could move, a voice boomed from the edge of the dais like thunder wrapped in ceremonial parchment.
“The Rite of Benedictional Grace,” announced Headmaster Draeth, “is a sacred embodiment of i...
2025-07-10 13:50:56 +0000 UTC
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Fabrisse spotted the scullery maid just as she emerged from the east gatehouse kitchen, balancing a cloth-covered tray in one hand and muttering under her breath about ‘those noodle-limbed faculty boys and their fire rites.’ The smell hit him before the sight did—fresh-baked bread, still warm enough to leave heat ghosts in the air. His feet moved without permission.
“Afternoon, Marla,” he said, putting on what he hoped was a harmless grin.
Marla squinted up at him. “We...
2025-07-10 06:04:32 +0000 UTC
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The curtains of Fabrisse’s dorm room was drawn tight. The desk had been cleared, and the scrolls had been stacked into a neat tower beside a jar of glyph quills. In the center lay three smooth pebbles, washed, dried, roughly uniform. He’d spent fifteen minutes choosing them from the Southern Edge path this morning, all the while muttering to himself. He’d even sent a message to Rolen regarding the skitterwhit incident, just so he could stop thinking about it. Rolen hadn’t replied.
...
2025-07-09 21:09:31 +0000 UTC
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Langley guided him off the field, to a slope beneath the old silverthorn tree at the eastern edge. The grass was cooler here, away from the scorch, and the breeze still held some evening light.
Fabrisse had braced himself for a lecture. Something about responsibility, safety protocols, what to report and what to omit. But Langley said none of that.
“I spoke to Lorvan earlier this week,” the professor said, settling onto a stump with a graceful flick of his coat. “He asked if...
2025-07-09 17:37:08 +0000 UTC
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Fabrisse was relieved the first person of authority to reach the scene was Professor Langley.
Of all the professors at the Synod, Langley was the one most students actually liked. Calm, clever, dry-witted when he wanted to be. More importantly, he was close to Lorvan, and knew how to handle weird things without calling half the academy down on you.
Langley approached at a brisk pace, his Purple Synod coat reserved for Professors flaring behind him in weathered folds. A pair of sle...
2025-07-09 14:34:10 +0000 UTC
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Fabrisse dove.
He hurled himself sideways into the thick of the whispergrass, hit the earth with a jolt of impact, and rolled beneath the moss curtain in one scrambling breath.
[Skill Activated: Liminal Presence Drift (Rank III)]
[Auditory Dissipation Field — Passive Stealth Engaged]
The air around him dulled. His breathing seemed to vanish from his own ears.
Somewhere above the grass line, the rattling sound of the Voidtouched Skitterwhit h...
2025-07-09 03:49:18 +0000 UTC
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The first skill Fabrisse activated was Spectral Appraisal.
[Spectral Appraisal — Active]
Target: Voidtouched Skitterwhit
— Status: Completely Healthy, Reasonably Angered
‣ STR (Strength): 38
‣ DEX (Dexterity): 27
‣ FOR (Fortitude): 12
‣ INT (Intuition): 9
‣ ARC (Aetheric Resonance Control): 5
‣ EMO (Emotional Attunement): ???
‣ SYN (Synaptic Clarity): 5<...
2025-07-09 02:52:19 +0000 UTC
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The puffball didn’t even squeak as the Stupenstone hit it. It simply sparked, stiffened, and dropped like a feather.
[Skitterwhit Slain — Clean Kill]
[Sidequest Progress: “Whittle the Whits!”]
✦ Skitterwhits Slain: 10 / 10
✦ Bonus Objective (Single Spell): 10 / 10
[Sidequest Complete — “Whittle the Whits!”]
+1 STR
+1 FP
2025-07-08 15:50:35 +0000 UTC
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[Skitterwhit Slain — Clean Kill]
[Sidequest Progress: “Whittle the Whits!”]
✦ Skitterwhits Slain: 4 / 10
✦ Bonus Objective (Single Spell): 4 / 10
Fabrisse crept along a patch of whispergrass still warm from the sun. He kept his breathing shallow and steady. Four down. Six to go.
His wrist ached a little from channeling the same spell in repetition. His knees were sore from crouching. And the sweat beading...
2025-07-07 21:48:22 +0000 UTC
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The Eastern Target Fields were technically outside the bounds of campus, which meant no faculty supervision, no spell range limiters, and plenty of dried leaves that looked extremely flammable. Tommaso had assured Liene and Fabrisse that this was ‘absolutely fine’ and ‘sanctioned in spirit if not in detail.’
Skitterwhits were winged, jittery creatures, no bigger than a butterfly. Fabrisse had imagined something vaguely mouse-shaped, maybe with glowy eyes. Instead, they looked li...
2025-07-07 20:25:15 +0000 UTC
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“This is nowhere near one meter,” Fabrisse muttered to himself as he closed his palm, extinguishing the fire inside. He’d been able to sustain the spell for more than three seconds now after some practice, and he was no longer burned by his own spells anymore. Apparently, after a while, you got used to your own fire. Professor Markenth once said, ‘A caster’s flame recognizes the intent of its source. Your mana wraps the fire like a leash, tempering it until you choose to unleash it....
2025-07-07 15:50:37 +0000 UTC
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“We’re learning emotional sustainment today,” Ganvar Ciemnosc folded her sleeves like she was about to perform a dissection. “Today, you’ll ignite and sustain your spark for more than a minute.”
Fabrisse sat on the grass and held the quartz Ganvar had given him between his palms like a consecrated scroll. “For more than how much time?”
Ganvar gave him a look that could have curdled warm milk. “A minute. You are supposed to be capable of feeling emotions for more ...
2025-07-07 10:47:27 +0000 UTC
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