The ice ball hit the disk and burst shooting shards of ice like tiny needles everywhere, but luckily, it did put out the disk. It also made it drop to the ground.
I walked over to it.
“Are you done for a second? Can we look too?” Sevrina called.
“Yeah, come see this!” I replied.
The disk was toast. Burnt almost to the point of disintegration, and cracked like a tree with too much sap in the winter on the other half.
“Bizzare,” Mavrin noted. “It’s as though the disk were never enchanted. It should heal. The runes are still carved in place… but it is as though the magic just… disappeared.”
“Like I un-magic-ed it?” I asked.
The elves winced. “Dispelled… like you dispelled the magic.”
“Ah, dispelled.” I corrected myself.
“No, if you dispelled the magic… the aura would remain, only to fade with time,” Mavrin explained. “The aura of magic here is just immediately gone.”
“How is that possible?” Narusil asked. “That is not how magic works.”
“Not how the magic WE KNOW works,” Sevrina explained. “Wayfarers have spoken of foreign magics that our understanding cannot explain, There were the Night Witches spoken of by Jilkurn, the Speakers found by Oulvern, the Kinetics who saved Plivra, and the Espers written about by Zaphthara. For all we know this magic is entirely separate from the two forms of magic we know and practice.”
“But it was given by Noriva, the Great Druid… Do not the druids practice a magic identical in almost every way to that of the priests?” Mavrin wondered.
“OUR druids do.” Sevrina theorized. “But we know the gods use magic beyond mortal ken. And Laliera is not here to speak on the knowledge of her people of one of their Patron Goddesses.”
The three stared at the disk, deep in thought.
“Does that mean this isn’t a safe place for me to practice?” I wondered.
“Well… your ice… spell?… seemed to have less danger of spreading,” Mavrin observed. “Try and cast it upon the walls. If the wards perform as intended, your spell will not reach the walls. If it does reach the walls…”
“Then we must find a new place for you to experiment,” Narusil stated bluntly. “Grandmaster Nixvarinth would be most upset if her practice room was destroyed.”
All three of them shuddered. I was filled with a strong urge to avoid this Grandmaster Nixvarinth at all costs.
“Well, here goes nothing.” I sighed.
I held my hands up and willed a small ice ball, as small as I could, to form. I lobbed it underhanded at the wall.
We all watched intently as the ice ball arched and sailed across the room. I could feel my matrons tense up until… crash! The ice clinging to the wall was incontrovertible proof that the wards had done nothing.
“By Mythrin’s mercy…” Narusil breathed.
“Fascinating. It appears to be raw, elemental manipulation. Such should not be possible, for even the Kinetics can only control a single element…” The voice spoke from directly behind me.
Hearing the voice, the three matrons flinched.
“Sevrina… Mavrin… Narusil… were you not intending to introduce me to your Master, or did I fail to teach you manners along with your magic?”
The three turned slowly, then snapped to attention, bowing respectfully.
I felt an impending sense of doom radiating from the figure that had silently materialized behind me. It was the only explanation! There had been no one in the room, then suddenly a voice had popped up behind me! I slowly turned, expecting a towering figure with lightning flashing behind her or something.
Grandmaster Nixvarinth was not at all what I expected. First off, yes, the Elven gods had not been generous when it came to giving height to the Wood Elves. The Wild Elves were closer to me in height and from what I’d seen the Mountain Elves got some decent height too, but Grandmaster Nixvarinth matched Sevrina, the shortest of my matrons, in height. She had long black hair, streaked with the white of age, in two braids along both sides of her head that merged into one in the back. She wore what was more of a dress than a robe, reaching her ankles, with slits by each leg for mobility. Her top was tight across her maidenly breasts and her trim stomach, and fit her arms like a second skin until each sleeve was secured by a loop on the center finger on each hand. Her shoulders were bare, as was her neck, though her collar was not so low as to even hint at her cleavage.
“Grandmaster Nixvarinth! We didn’t hear you enter.” Narusil sputtered.
“Clearly. Now enough of that Grandmaster nonsense. There is only one Master present and you have STILL yet to introduce me.” She retorted, her voice snapping like a whip.
“Forgive us… Grandmaster Nixvarinth, this is our Master, Master Thomas Nord. Master, this is Grandmaster Nixvarinth Sageheart the most preeminent mage in all of-”
“Enough.” Nixvarinth cut her off. “Titles and tales of insignificant accomplishments are irrelevant.”
Sevrina opened her mouth to protest, but a steely gaze stopped the words dead on her lips.
“Now that the necessary formalities have been satisfied… this magic of yours intrigues me.” She noted, walking soundlessly to circle me. “You used neither incantation nor any type of martial form to perform your magic, and the ease with which you performed it speaks of negligible mental concentration…”
She was coldly calculating and seemed somewhere between a coiled viper, prepared to strike out at a threat, and a wheeling falcon, watching for an opportunity to dive. Her every move seemed calculated and carefully controlled, and as I watched she began her observation circle, and I realized something was off… her feet weren’t moving as she walked. It was as though her feet were an inch off the ground and she simply willed the world around her to move and the universe was too scared to say no.
“… So, I can only conclude that it is an inborn ability of your people to control the elements.” She concluded.
“Um, that’s not… not how that is,” I explained. “It isn’t an inborn thing, it was a boon, from Noriva.”
“Ah, variables I had not considered were in effect.” She accepted gracefully. “A boon… Receiving a boon is a great honor. It is a wonder that the Goddess to give you your boon was from our sisters on the plains. I do not know what acts of heroism earned you your boon on the plains, but I struggle to believe that they surpassed that which you performed here.”
“Well… X’Thallion did give me a boon for what I did here too.” I told her.
Despite the fact that she was in fact, hovering and not walking, that declaration made Nixvarinth trip, stumble and almost fall. Once she recovered, she turned to me.
“Forgive me, I swore I misheard you… did you claim to be the bearer of TWO boons?” Nixvarinth gasped in dismay.
“Grandmaster, our Master bears three boons.” Mavrin clarified.
“THREE?! … Three…” She murmured.
“Yes. X’Thallion gave him a boon of Strength. Noriva gave him a gift of Magic. The third was a gift of endurance from Elglathar.” Sevrina explained.
“Strength, Endurance and Magic.” She murmured. “And you were experimenting with your boon of magic?”
“Yes, Grandmaster. We were just going to stop, so as not to cause damage to the chamber.” Narusil acknowledged.
“Yes, this is not the right place to practice such magics.” Nixvarinth declared. She made a series of hand signs and spoke a single word. With a jerk, we were all suddenly NOT in a chamber within the tree of the Academy. “This is the place to practice such magics.”
“The dueling terrace?” Sevrina asked.
The terrace was roughly the size of a basketball court, with branches and seating. Marks on the floor broke the arena into two sections. Each one had an inner and outer marking, like if a smaller arena like… tennis, is a tennis court smaller than a basketball court? That sounds right, so like if a tennis court was inside a basketball court. With a splash zone around the outside, but not between the two sides.
“The only way to allow him to practice without risk to the city… is with a competent opponent to counter his results.” She declared, floating to the center of her side. “Come, Master Thomas, show me the magic you have been gifted.”
“Uh, I don’t want to hurt you,” I told her.
She smiled like a cat about to pounce. “You flatter yourself. Come, show me your magic.”
I turned to my matrons who were scurrying out of the arena.
“Don’t worry, Grandmaster Nixvarinth is one of the most accomplished magical duelists in our history,” Mavrin assured me.
Nixvarinth’s feet touched the ground and she assumed a stance, on the balls of her feet, knees slightly bent, hands together with her fingertips touching and her fingers spread. She smiled with a sense of exhilaration.
I snapped to fill my hand with fire and tossed it carefully toward her.
With a word and a slash of her hand, a burst of wind blasted my fire aside and extinguished it.
“Worthless. Come, surely the Goddess gave you more.” She taunted.
I tried a harder throw. Again, she slapped it aside with the same spell.
“Come, can all your magic be countered with novice spells?” Nixvarinth demanded. “Show me your magic!”
I took both my hands and willed fire into both of them. I felt stupid, but thought of the strongest attack I could think of from my limited exposure to anime and superhero movies. I held my hands together, making the fires jump and form a sphere between my hands. Luckily, I was pretty sure I didn’t have to yell some fancy name for my attack.
I really hoped this didn’t hurt her.
I pushed my hands forward and remembered the blast the anime character had thrown… What was his name? Goki? Genki? Whatever.
The blast of fire shot across the arena and a blast of smoke covered the field.
“Shit…” I muttered and took a step forward before I saw something through the smoke. “Wait… what?”
There was a wall of ice, about six feet wide and tall, though there was quite a dent.
“Better.” Nixvarinth declared. With a wave of her hand, the wall shattered, leaving ice shards scattered in front of her. “That required a spell of a third novice tier.”
She was starting to piss me off. Maybe the fire was just too slow. I imagined lightning in my hand and threw it out, trying to keep the power down so she wouldn’t get hurt.