Touch of Fate

Chapter 108: Instructive Discourse

Mike grabbed a sandwich from the cafeteria and ate it on the way, making sure to stuff some dried meat into his familiar pocket for when Audra woke up. The classroom for the Basic Summoning Magic class was also on the far eastern side of the department, near where he'd been earlier this morning. It turned out to be a large, covered pavilion. Two people were standing near the center, so he headed that direction.

The first was a timid looking female beastman who was maintaining a fair amount of distance between herself and the other inhabitant of the pavilion. She was petite, and had curly cream-colored hair that partially covered a pair of long pointed ears that were angled towards the floor. Thanks in large part to the two curled horns on either side of her head, her race was a dead giveaway, but he used Appraise anyway.

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Carol

Age: 17

Race: Sheep Beastman

Class: Apprentice Summoner

Title: Sheltered

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[Do other people not have the ability to change their active titles?]

Carol took notice of his examination, and gave Mike a wary look. Deciding that it would be best to not upset her so early into their class, he turned his gaze towards the other occupant, a male human. In many ways, he looked even more outlandish than the beastman.

He was pale skinned with long black hair, and dark brown eyes. With his brooding countenance, somber features, and tall muscular frame, he looked like the lead singer for a death metal band from Mike's old world.

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Killian Parr

Age: 20

Race: Human (Deep Giant)

Class: Summoner

Title: Amorathi Caller

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[Another Giant bloodline. It seems I really need to do some investigation into the other sentient races of this world.]

Since the instructor was still nowhere in sight, Mike decided to try breaking the ice. "Hello, I'm Mike. I guess we are going to be classmate for the next couple of months."

Killian gave him a quiet nod, and went back to staring into the distance. Carol shrank back slightly when he started speaking, but relaxed a little after hearing what he had to say.

"Y-yeah. I-I guess so. I-I'm Carol." She answered in a quiet stutter, looking decidedly embarrassed about it.

"Nice to meet you." He replied with a warm smile which caused her to blush slightly. He looked around again. "I don't think I was that early. Is the instructor late?"

"I've heard rumors that the Basic Summoning Magic teacher is gifted, but irresponsible." Carol answered tentatively. "Maybe she forgot about having class today?"

As soon as she finished speaking, all three of them noticed a figure approaching quickly at a dead run. After a minute or so, the figure finally arrived at the pavilion, panting and sweaty.

It turned out to be a slender human woman with light pink hair in a pixie cut, her instructor robes were largely in disarray, but he could still see that she had a silver emblem, and three orange stripes were present on each sleeve. Mike took a moment to use Appraise while she was catching her breath.

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Madeline Turminsey

Age: 27

Race: Human (Fae)

Class: Fairy Summoner

Title: Fae Child

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[I shouldn't be surprised that there are fairies in this world, although I am a little curious how you are supposed to summon them.]

After a few more ragged gasps, Madeline straightened, gave a brilliant smile, and spoke, "I'm glad you all made it early! I'm Madeline, and I'll be teaching you all about the wondrous world of summoning. Now, before we begin, I'd like to get to know you all a little better, so if you don't mind giving a little introduction?"

[Not going to even apologize for being late, I can understand why she would be called irresponsible.]

Mike raised his hand, "I'm Mike, a first year student. Native to Almir. Do you need to know anything else?"

"Have you already learned summoning magic?"

"No, is that a problem?"

Madeline smiled in a reassuring manner, "Not at all, I just wanted to get a feel for the class."

Carol raised her hand next, and spoke quietly while staring at her feet. "I.I'm Carol. Also from Almir....I haven't learned the skill yet either"

"Well get you taken care of, don't you worry." Madeline tried to cheer the beastman up before turning to Killian expectantly.

After a few moments of silence, he finally spoke in a deep, sonorous voice. "The name's Killian. I've summoned a few things before."

[Yep, definitely could be a death metal singer. I should introduce him to Morris sometime, and see if they can't form some kind of musical group....I wonder if I could use magic to generate sound. Maybe something with Air magic..]

Madeline clapped her hands together, interrupting Mike's train of thought. "Alright, then! Now that we're all introduced, it's time to get started. I'll begin by explaining a little about how summoning magic works."

With a look of concentration, she started speaking in a low, rhythmic voice. "Come forth, that which I desire. Make my wish manifold [Conjure Object]."

There was a subdued pop, and four simple stools appeared in front of her. "Everyone take one and have a seat, please." After they had done so. "What I just did was one of the simplest forms of Conjuration, which is in turn one of the three main forms of Summoning Magic, along with Calling and Binding."

"Most people seem to think that summoning is all about bringing forth some big, bad monsters to fight your enemies for you. Well, I'm here to tell you that there is so much more to it." Her face lit up with enthusiasm. "You can do all kinds of things with Summoning Magic, it's really only limited by your imagination....and your affinities.and your class"

She coughed, "Anyway, I should explain first. Conjuration is the most common kind of summoning, where you use mana to create a temporary, artificial construct that echoes something from your memory. The spell I used earlier, Conjure Object, relies on my mental image of a stool to create these." She gestured to the stools they were all sitting on.

"This means that you can create almost any object so long as you have a good mental image of it. Conjuration becomes a little more complicated with intricate designs and living creatures. This is somewhat compensated for by the System, which assigns summoning affinities to each person, making it easier to conjure a particular type of creature. For instance, I have a strong connection with the Fae, letting me summon them with greater ease than something like a demon."

She stood, and began pacing in a circle while she talked, "While flexible, there are a few drawbacks to Conjuration. It's the most mana intensive of the three, which makes sense when you consider how you are building things from scratch using it. Also, everything you conjure is temporary. Once the mana expires the construct disappears. Speaking of which ."

With another pop, the stools vanished, dropping the students onto the ground.

"Whoops. Sorry about that. I'm terrible at timing my Conjuration." She gave an embarrassed laugh before continuing, "Anyway, that brings me to the next form, Calling. Unlike in Conjuration, when you call something, you are only bringing something that already exists or once existed to you. If the target of the spell exists somewhere, it is forcibly summoned, although you have to be skilled enough to force them to arrive. If the target no longer exists, for the cost of a tremendous amount of mana, you can recreate it from the records. There is apparently some repository of all knowledge that exists...somewhere." She gestured vaguely into the air.

"Apparently, the System acts as a sort of tunnel that lets you pull from this repository. Anything you end up using Calling on will remain permanently, although things with wills are just as likely to attack you as they are to help."

Carol raised her hand, a hint of hope in her voice. "Wait, does that mean you could potentially bring someone back from the dead."

Madeline look a little uncomfortable. "Let me be clear. It is technically possible to create an exact duplicate of someone using Calling, but even if you managed to harness the staggering amount of mana it would require to do so, they would not be the same person."

She hesitated for a moment, as if unsure if she should continue, "What few recorded experiments that have been done on souls show that, whatever process the soul goes through on death, no magic, calling included, is able to influence it after a certain point. It's believed that once a soul reenters the reincarnation cycle, they are protected from all magical interference. By the same token, Necromancers are able to manipulate the souls of the recently dead, or those who have bound themselves to this world, because those souls are still unprotected."

"There are some recorded instances of powerful healers who managed to revive someone who had died very recently, but never for anyone who had been gone longer than a few minutes. It's uncertain if even the gods can bring someone back from the dead after any length of time."

The beastman looked more depressed with every word, and eventually the instructor walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "I know it's easy to believe that magic is all powerful, but the simple fact of the matter is, there are many things beyond its reach. I'm sorry."

Carol nodded quietly, but didn't speak.

No longer looking quite so enthused, Madeline returned to her lecture. "That brings me to the final type of Summoning Magic, and also the most dangerous. Binding is almost a different kind of magic altogether. As its name implies, it allows its users to bind the recipients of their Calling spells either into their servitude, or into a contract for a specific task. There are numerous ways to do so, but some of the more common involve completely separate skills, like Bind Familiar."

[Eh?]

"Typically, when a summoner wants to summon a familiar, they use a specialized calling spell followed by ritually formed contract sealed with the blood of the summoner. The specifics of that contract are usually worked out between both parties at this point, but if one side has a far greater amount of mana than the other, they can impose certain conditions upon the recipient. This, of course is a much higher level of spellcasting than we will be dealing with in this class. For the time being, the two of you who have not unlocked your skill yet, please stand over there for a moment."

"Killian, please practice conjuring objects for the time being while I walk them through the process."

Madeline took Carol and Mike off to one side. "Unfortunately, there aren't any good shortcuts to gaining the skill. You just have to keep working at it. Now I would recommend you start with summoning objects, but it's difficult to keep the required image in mind without practice. Instead, we're going to use a scroll to summon a creature that corresponds to your affinity. Hopefully, you'll get a feel for the process when you do so."

She handed both of them a simple roll of thick paper. "Go ahead and unroll it."

Mike did so, and was greeted with the sight of an intricate design made of overlapping arcane runes. Just looking it over, he felt that he was getting the faintest trace of meaning. He could make out the words for 'call,' and 'servant.' The paint used was a glossy black, and he could sense the energy stored within.

"I don't know if either of you have used scrolls before, but its relatively straightforward. Any mage with a sufficient control of their mana can activate one by pushing a small amount of mana into the runic design. From there, the scroll itself will take care of the rest. Please keep in mind they are single use items, and fairly expensive to boot, so don't rush it."

Feeling a wave of excitement, Mike pushed a little mana into the scroll, and watched as the symbols started to glow.