Kanin Fyre: Chapter 4 - The Academy

Once we make it down the shore, the streets and canals are even wider than they appeared from afar. It's not hard to see why this is the capital of Valenia South. 

Although the city's primary inhabitants don't speak, the city is still bustling with familiar sounds. The hiss of food stalls, the clatter of carts over stone, messenger wyverns and pets chittering and barking; doors banging shut, windows hinged open, and of course the ever present sound of people, with boots or scales scraping over the ground, and clothes stirred by a maritime breeze. 

Plenty of non-lamias also talk, of course, but all the background noise of civilization is more prominent here than I'd ever previously experienced.

“Oh, grilled clams!” Noli exclaims as we pass by a smoking stall filled with… well they don't look like any kind of clam I'm familiar with. I wonder if something is lost in translation. “We should come back here for dinner! I've missed seafood.”

Tell me about it.

Rezira appears skeptical. “We had fish every day when we were sailing with Murrok.”

“We did,” Noli signs wistfully.

Zyneth appears even less enthusiastic than Rezira, and I can't blame him. I (and Ink, it reminds me,) caught him fish when we ran out of rations on the Prismatic, but we didn't have much of anything to flavor them with. At least Zyneth had his fire so he didn't have to eat anything raw. 

God, I miss sushi.

Actually, I might be able to smell and taste a bit of the food here—or rather, Ink can, if it feels like indulging me. For a couple weeks after The Yedzaquib Event™ Noli had tried to get Ink to try a bit of whatever the group was eating. Ink found this boring at best and eventually became too annoyed by the frequency of requests to cooperate. 

How about smell? I wonder. I bet that grill smells amazing. 

Ink really doesn't see the point of this, especially as there is nothing magical around to smell or taste.

Indulge me, I think.

Ink emits something between a growl and a sigh. Only if this will get me to stop making these requests.

I'll limit it to one request per week.

Ink doesn't know how long a week is, and feels like this is some sort of trick, but it begrudgingly plays along. 

The void beneath my coat stirs as Ink focuses on it, reaching out to sense the air around us. It’s faint at first, so I try to push my mind toward the sensation, hoping to catch a whiff of Simora’s cuisine. Instead, we smell…

The ocean. The scent of saltwater hits us like a truck, because with it comes memories of Emrox. Shredding our way out of the Inventory, the predator taking control of my mind, the fear and helplessness and malicious triumph as we battled Zyneth—

I yank my mind away from the smell, and Ink likewise drops the sensation, both of us startled by the strong association. 

Ink decides it won’t do that again while we are in this city. 

Yeah, I agree, a little rattled. I think that’s for the best. 

I try to shake off those memories by focusing on my surroundings. As we wind our way to the Academy at the center of the city, we pass through an enormous plaza. I’d expect this to be used as a marketplace of some sort, and from the weathering patterns on the ground that even seems to be the case, but it’s presently empty. Some wooden bleachers at one end of the plaza are in the middle of being disassembled, and when I look closer, I pick up on signs of a recent festival or event of some sort. Colorful cloth is draped around the walls of the square, and bits of confetti litter the gutter. 

“Looks like we just missed it,” I remark. 

“I wonder what it was for?” Noli frowns as she glances around the plaza. “I don’t recall there being a holiday around this time.” 

“I don’t think it was a holiday,” Zyneth says, gesturing to a news bulletin on the nearest wall. Even from a distance, I can read the large print at the top: 

GODS’ TOURNAMENT COMPLETE!

Noli and Rezira exchange a look. I head over to the billboard to read the announcement. 

Looks like the tournament just finished two days ago. It was for a god named Pouzo. The name sounds vaguely familiar; Zyneth has told me about them before. I prod Echo for a reminder. 

[Pouzo: the halfling god of fishing, moonlight, and the tides.]

Right. He’s a minor god, I think. The name and image of the person who was made his champion is posted beneath: a lamia named Tarlock, it seems. The bulletin mentions that this was the last Gods’ Tournament to be held in Valenia, and that the final Gods’ Tournament is in a city in Dunmora, and will be for a god named Yua Tin. This one is more familiar to me than the water god; their specialty is something like stars or navigation. 

“Glad our tickets were delayed those couple of days,” Rezira remarks. 

“That’s probably why they were delayed,” Zyneth says. “People going to see the Tournament booked all the time slots to Simora.” He glances at me. “Though you’re right, it probably was a good thing we missed it.” 

I still want to attend a Gods’ Tournament—now more than ever, since learning some of the gods are searching for me. I know it’s risky, but it also presents an opportunity for me to learn more about them… and possibly forge some alliances. 

The last Tournament is a little over a week away, however, and given it’s on a different continent, one which doesn’t use telepads, I don’t know if it’s even possible to make it there in time. 

“Well,” Noli signs, breaking through our thoughts, “all’s well that ends well, I suppose. Shall we continue on to the Academy?” 

“Let’s,” Rezira agrees. 

It takes another hour of wandering through streets and crossing over canals before we reach the campus. It might have taken less time if we hadn’t kept stopping for Noli to give us sight-seeing factoids, but no one objects to the frequent diversions. It’s nice to not be constantly running from place to place. 

Like the rest of the city, the Academy is stunning. The canals here are more narrow and more numerous, following the footpaths as an alternate mode of transportation between buildings. There's significantly more green space here than in the rest of the city, and flowers are planted in front of buildings and in tasteful geometric designs across lawns. The buildings themselves are full of so much colorful glass that I can see straight through them in places, and make out similarly transparent buildings beyond. The sunlight that shines through these buildings colors the walkways in a prismatic effect. 

We find a directory, which lists the different schools and their locations. I'm mildly surprised to realize this isn't just a magic school. The School of the Arcane is one college among many—which, you know, makes complete sense. Magic may seem like this mystical “other” for me, but it's just another area of study for this world, no different from art or history or math. 

That said, the School of the Arcane does take up a disproportionately large section of the campus; it’s about as big as two or three other schools combined. What with five main fields of magic to study (and fifteen primary subfields, and probably hundreds of more specialties,) I’m surprised it’s not bigger. It’s broken into five departments, each with their own building: Storm, Earth, Life, Ocular, and Null. We follow the directions to the Department of Null Arcanum. 

“You guys don’t have to tag along, you know,” I tell the others. “I’m sure there’s countless more interesting things to do in this city than listen to a lecture on void magic.”

“Okay. See you later,” Rezira says, turning to leave. Noli catches her arm with a laugh. Rezira is grinning when she’s pulled back to us. 

“We’ve come all this way,” Noli signs. “You can’t expect us to go right when it’s about to get interesting!” 

“I’m quite intrigued to see what they have to say,” Zyneth agrees. “Null magic is one field I’ve not worked with much in artificing, so I’m happy to learn more.” 

“Alright,” I relent. “But don’t blame me if you’re nodding off in the back of an office after a couple hours of lecturing. I don’t get tired, remember.”

In truth, though, I’m happy to have them with me. I won’t be attempting a disguise, like I did with Caecius, since I’ll probably need to go into detail about my situation and what I’d like to develop with my void abilities (our void abilities, Ink says) and it will be nice to have other non-homunculus people around to vouch for my sapience. 

Ink is one thing I won’t be talking to them about, for obvious reasons. 

Inside the building are a series of lecture halls and dozens of private offices. A voice is drifting from one of them, so I wander in that direction to listen in. Zyneth stops at another directory, meanwhile, while Noli and Rezira crane their heads toward the dramatic architecture. It might be gothic. Or Victorian. Okay, I don’t know anything about architecture. 

There aren’t any doors to the lecture hall, and I feel a bit awkward about standing in the doorway as students stare at me, so I roll a marble of glass just inside the arch with sight and sound turned on. 

The lecturer is a lamia who is signing, as it turns out, and the voice is coming from a translator sitting on a nearby desk. There’s something like a floor-to-ceiling blackboard behind them, except instead of using chalk, they gesture up to the board with empty hands, and light flutters from their fingers and turns into words and spell circles against the black backdrop. Some kind of illusion magic, I think. 

“You can go in, you know,” Zyneth says to me. “The lectures are for anyone to attend as they please.”

For some reason, the offer makes me nervous. Is it because I’d be going in there without a human disguise? I’ve gotten used to walking around Harrowood on my own without anyone accompanying me. It shouldn’t be any different here. So what about the idea bothers me?

“No,” I say. “It’s about telepads.” I withdraw my marble, turning its sight and sound off before I make myself too dizzy. “Find anything in the register?”

“Possibly,” Zyneth says, retreating from the lecture hall with me as I go to look over the list of academics myself. “I didn’t see any that specialized in void, but there are enough general null experts that should work.”

He’s right: the names on the board are all accompanied by room numbers and specialties, and while there are plenty of specialties in summoning and mind magic, I don’t see any that are on void. 

“Odd.” I thought this was supposed to be one of the most prestigious arcana schools on the continent. “I wonder why?”

I make note of the room numbers for a couple of the general null arcana mages and then we start a trek through the building. 

We pass several other lecture halls; two of them are empty, and another one is talking about something to do with mind magic. I wonder if these are areas I can branch into, actually. They’re all null magic, but since my specialty is void, one step down from the umbrella category, it’s a bit harder to branch over to the neighboring specialties. Not impossible, though: Zyneth managed to develop a lightning affinity, despite that being Storm arcana, while his original affinity was fire, a subfield of Earth arcana. The fact that they were both energy-based made them easier to bridge, Zyneth had told me before. So maybe if there’s something similar to my void abilities, I could also expand into that field of magic. 

I’m not terribly wild about learning mind magic, to be honest. I mean, maybe it could be useful, if I lost my translator or destroyed my hands (both entirely possible scenarios given my history) and needed to broadcast my thoughts as a way to communicate. But the idea of it turning into some type of mind control unsettles me, and it reminds me a bit too much of my Role Requirement, which had dictated my actions before Trenevalt died. 

Summoning might be interesting. It seems tangentially related to my Inventory ability, which as I understand it is a pocket dimension of void arcana living somewhere in the Between. Summoning moves things between two real places, but if I could, I don’t know, store all my stuff in one place with a telepad, maybe I could draw a corresponding telepad to access it, and use it as a slightly-less-convenient-but-much-bigger Inventory space. 

Assuming I can even unlock these fields, of course. 

Many of the offices are empty, presumably because the academics are busy lecturing here or in some other building. Rezira says experts don’t just teach within their own college: when she was learning healing, it was taught by a combination of biology, healing arcana, and medical science professors. 

Finally, however, we do come across one of the general null arcana experts who is in their office. The name above their door says Master Trelisan. Their door is open, so I stick my head inside. 

I’m briefly caught off guard. Trelisan is sitting behind a desk, working through some papers, and she looks up when I pause in the doorway—equally surprised by my appearance. 

Trelisan is a halfling, just like Trenavalt. It’s a strange coincidence, as they both specialize in null magic. But it’s only that—a coincidence. I quickly recover. 

“Sorry to bother you,” I sign and speak, unsure which language she primarily uses. “Master Trelisan? I was wondering if you had a few minutes.”

Zyneth steps up beside me, and Trelisan blinks at the two of us with a perplexed frown.

“Yes, I’m a talking homunculus, no, he’s not my creator,” I say, thumbing a fist toward Zyneth. “Null magic is involved. Which is why I’d like to talk.”

“Um, of course,” Trelisan says. “Come in.” 

The office isn’t big enough for the four of us, so Noli and Rezira remain outside. 

Trelisan stares up at Zyneth and I with a baffled look. She keeps glancing toward Zyneth, as if expecting him to do the talking. Maybe I should have used my disguise for this after all. I mean, the illusion still can’t make facial expressions, so I have to bundle up until you can barely even see the skin underneath, (which looks suspicious in its own right,) but at least we could have skipped through the whole “thinking homunculus” explanation. 

“Hi,” I say, taking a seat opposite her desk. Maybe the two of us looming over her isn’t the most congenial way to start this conversation. Zyneth takes a seat, too. “I’m K— I’m Kay.” 

After learning from Blair that the gods are looking for a human named Kanin, Zyneth and I decided it would be best to keep both those pieces of information to myself. There’s nothing we can do about people who already know my name and origins, but there’s no sense in spreading it further.

“I used to be an elf,” I continue, rapping my knuckles against my chest. “Some void stuck my soul to a glass bottle, so now I live in this thing. I’m looking for someone who can help me with void magic.” 

I can’t blame her for looking utterly bewildered. “You’re serious?” 

It’s not the first time someone thought my ability to speak was some kind of prank. 

It takes a couple minutes of Zyneth and I explaining my situation before Trelisan seems to start to believe us. I finally show her my vial, which I remove from my chest, carefully keeping Ink out of sight. 

Finally, she sighs, shaking her head. “I’m not sure you need a void master; I think you might need someone in the Life field.”

The suggestion catches me off guard. “You mean, you think someone could find a way to get me back into a real body?” That was not what I came here for, but the suggestion summons an aching swell in my soul. Is that possible? Could someone here help me live again? 

I squash my rising hope before it can take hold. If it is possible, all the better. But I won’t let myself hope again—I don’t think I could survive the crushing disappointment a second time. And I won’t let myself launch on another single-minded crusade to get my body back while hurting my friends in the process. I have bigger priorities now. People who need my help. I can look into ways to get a human body again after all the Travelers are taken care of, first.

“I don’t know,” Trelisan admits. “A method for eternal life is something people have attempted to discover for generations. No one’s ever achieved it—before you, at least.” 

“Eternal life?” I repeat, bewildered. “You’re saying I’m immortal?”

“Well, a form of immortality, it seems.” Trelisan leans forward, her brows creased. “You can still die if your spell expires or if your core is destroyed. But you’ll never die of disease or old age. This is remarkable.” (Ink smugly agrees: we are remarkable.) “I’m not sure anyone would have thought void was the key—almost all research into the subject has been in the field of Life arcana. Void is supposed to be related to space. Gravity, shape, movement—though I suppose if the spatial aspect were applied to an object…” She looks sharply back up at me. “Would you like to work with the college on research into your state? This has the potential for a major arcane discovery.”

Okay, so this is not how I thought this meeting was going to go. I look at Zyneth, and he holds up his hands. “This is your call, not mine.” 

Learning more about my magic and body would be invaluable, but I’m not sure how I feel about being a lab rat. No matter how nicely Trelisan worded it, it sounds like she wants me to be a research subject rather than a joint researcher. Not that I think there’s any malicious intent behind that; they’re the experts and I’ve only been studying magic for one year, after all. I could probably swallow my pride if it meant learning more about my nature. 

But if this does end up being some big magical breakthrough, as Trelisan implied, do I want to be associated with that? Would it attract the attention of the gods? I might be painting a target on my back. 

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Of course.” Trelisan sits back, clearly exercising some effort to restrain her eagerness. “Of course. Take whatever time you need.”

Good, because I’ll need some time to sort through my jumble of thoughts on the matter. All of this is a distraction from my real purpose for being here, anyway. “In the meantime, do you think you’d be able to help me develop my magic? I’ve found texts about general null spells, but not much about void.”

Trelisan grimaces. “I’m sorry to say I might not be able to help much with that. My background is in general null arcana applications.”

“Doesn’t that include void?” I ask. 

She shakes her head. “Void expertise is rare. It’s difficult to study, and the inability to attune it limits our applications of the magic. Most null mages focus on summoning and mind magics, as these are seen as the more practical fields of study. Research into void magic is purely academic.”

Well that’s disappointing. I wonder if she’d flip out if I showed her just how much void I have Attuned.

(We have Attuned.)

Ink, would you shut up? 

“A friend gave me the name of a professor who might work here,” I say, “or used to, at least. Master Siqi? Do you know him?”

Trelisan’s face clouds over. “Oh, I know him. He’s trouble is what he is.”

Figures. “He works here then?”

The halfling laughs ruefully. “According to the books he does! But he hasn’t shown his face in months.” The professor leans forward, a crazed look in her eyes. “And good riddance, I say. No accountability, whatsoever! Do you know how many classes he’s failed to show up to? Do you know how many lectures I’ve had to cover for him? He’ll commit to teach three classes and then just vanish halfway through the semester. It’s mayhem, I tell you! The rest of us have to scramble to cover for him so the poor students aren’t left abandoned—not that the rest of us can really cover the sort of material he teaches, anyway, but we do our best. Then one day he’ll just pop back up like nothing happened. Teach classes like normal. And just when it seems like his disappearing acts are a thing of the past, he’ll up and vanish once more. He’s been doing this for years! I can’t believe the dean hasn’t banned him yet.”

I’m sure all that is frustrating for her, but I can’t help but find the rant a little amusing. “Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?” I ask. 

“Of course not,” she grumbles. “He could be back tomorrow, or a year from now. I suspect he only comes back when he’s bored of whatever else he’s doing—haphazardly teaching at some other academy, for all I know. If he knew you were here, though, I’m sure he’d be excited to study you.”

Oh, joy. 

“You’re welcome to see if he left anything of use in his office,” Trelisan adds with a sigh. “Might be able to find some notes on void magic he left around. Though I’ll warn you, it’s an absolute mess.”

“Um, sure,” I say. “If that’s not an invasion of…” I’ve barely gotten the first word out before Trelisan jumps down from her chair and hurries to the door. 

“It’s the least he can do for all the trouble he’s caused.” Then she brightens. “But if you can parse anything from his notes, that could be of great use to the rest of the department. Come on! Right this way.”

Zyneth glances at me.

“What are you thinking?” I ask as I stand to follow her out. 

“I think she really wants to win you over so you’ll stay,” he says quietly. 

That would explain why she’s so eager to help all of a sudden. 

“Learn anything?” Noli asks as we step outside. 

“Not yet,” I sign, gesturing her and Rezira along as we head after Trelisan, who’s already halfway down the hall. “The Academy has a void expert, but he isn’t here right now. But they want me to stay so they can study my magic.”

Noli wrinkles her nose faintly. “How do you feel about that?”

I still haven’t figured that out yet. Working with a bunch of mages who are versed in this kind of magic is really appealing. I stand to find more answers here than anywhere else I’ve found so far. Even if it means I’m the one being studied.

But I also wonder what they might learn about Ink. It’s inseparably part of my void, and under such scrutiny, its existence would surely be discovered. I don’t know if any of them would understand what it is, but from what Blair said, remnants aren’t looked upon fondly. Would the risk be worth it? 

It’s impossible to know without learning more about these remnants, and the gods, and how all this ties together. Like trying to solve a crossword puzzle with only one letter filled in.

“Still thinking about it,” I finally reply to Noli. 

It seems I’ve got a lot to think about these days.