Crystal Cage 3

Leisurely strolling to his destination, Orison took in the the Capital of Thoth. Situated on a mesa of dreary tundra, it was all too often under a thin film of clouds that never quite produced enough rain or let in enough light of day to bloom into the grassland that covered the map surrounding it. The city's main claim to fame were the vast amounts of low-end magical tech it made and the sizable amount of elementalists that called it home. The summoner training device was also here but once the instructor period was over, those rare few who focused on summoner as their main profession tended to be migratory.

Orison got the feeling that something had gone wrong with the original designed purpose of this place. He highly doubted this mesa that seemed to practically bubble with spiritual essence should feel so essence deficient in the air. No doubt, this was likely one of the reasons summoner's potential was so rarely explored. On the way to see his summoner instructor, the young mage's spirit sight revealed the prevalent problems of this place. Between advanced elementalists practicing their destructive magic at the mesa's edges where it wouldn't hurt anyone and the manufacturers sucking essence out of the ground to fuel their mass produced convenience items, the mecca of summoners had turned into a nightmare of smog and ozone.

Slightly depressed, Orison finally greeted his instructor, a wild haired human who wasn't actually a summoner at all but had managed to reached the required mark to earn extra money as an instructor while trying to elevate his achievements in elemental magic. At thirty-five the man looked older than forty and his spiritual outline looked a touch faded. Obviously having met a little too much tragedy in his Chosen status prime, the man was likely scared of death and took the route of many other 'retired' elementalists before him.

"There are always one or two Chosen every year who choose this training to augment their elementalist profession. You won't hear me complaining since it means I get to keep my measly 100 gold a week salary. The name's Mylar, by the way." the man with short but unruly black hair touched by a few white streaks, said.

Orison introduced himself as well while trying not to imagine the man being made out of aluminum covered plastic.

Mylar continued, "So, have you completed your elementalist instruction or have you came here first? I need to know if you'll start throwing ice and fire around if you get startled."

Not wanting to start hearing more well-meaning but unwanted advice about killing himself and dropping one of his combat trainings, Orison said, "Here first."

As the man went on a bland diatribe of what a summoner was and how a person went on to get started, Orison interrupted him. "I apologize but what would it take to do the practical parts of this instruction period closer to the druid's beginner zone?"

Stunned for a moment, the instructor asked why.

Orison explained, "A partially brain-dead person could figure out that this mesa has long become a place where summoning would be hard to train in. Spirit infused magic is alive in a manner of speaking. This place couldn't be more dead without becoming a necropolis. The only place that even comes close to the environment that this place presumably once resembled is the druid's beginner zone."

The instructor frowned thoughtfully then said, "If you're willing to bear the expense of our transport and willing to return without complaint if another potential future summoner stumbles in here at any time during your instructor period, then it's not a bother. It might be a fairly decent change of pace."

Orison coughed dryly, "As long as you don't insist on inn rooms and restaurant meals in Daub, then fine. 400 gold is already a bit rich for the blood."

Mylar laughed. "You won't find an elementalist whose afraid to spend a few nights in a tent unless it's storming but during this time, if we find a need for shelter, I'm sure the druid instructor wouldn't mind hosting us for a stormy night or two. Chances are good that just the story of why we are there may end up buying us at least one decent meal."

Initially, Orison thought that moving to outside the woodland city of Daub would be a hassle but the instructor seemed more eager than him to go. It occurred to him that Mylar may not have been that great of a success story and now found himself lacking the savings to make trips like this often. Considering a round trip would cost half a month's salary, if Orison was in the instructor's place, he'd have cried tears of joy to temporarily escape this dismal cesspit for a couple of weeks.

Stepping off the transport platform at Daub, Orison briefly soaked in the sight of aesthetically appealing tree houses while breathing in the significantly sweeter air. Though Mylar was doing the same, the older man was trying to be sly about it. To grant a little dignity to himself, Mylar restarted the tutorial lectures Orison was certain the man could deliver while sleeping as they walked.

Since it was only polite as their presence was a bit unorthodox, Mylar briefly explained the situation to the druid instructor which not only 'bought' them a meal but a place to stay for the entire time that they were there. Druidic path wasn't quite as unpopular as summoner but the majority of it's students were like Gan and didn't have much propensity for magic. As soon as they had understanding enough to forego it to advance to ranger, it was abandoned entirely. It did have its fair share of post thirties constituents as the druidic path boasted some vitality preserving aspects at its later stages but those older students rarely desired instruction for more than an hour or two to help them get the initial concepts down.

At the moment, the elven druid instructor who insisted on being called Mo, didn't have any active students so as Orison and Mylar where about their business, the elf tagged along to alleviate boredom. That ended up being a boon to Orison and Mylar both as the elf's quiet conversation with Mylar kept the elementalist from interrupting Orison with unneeded advice on how to 'feel' the flow of spiritual essence and gave Mylar pleasant companionship.

What typically took anywhere from one to two days for a beginner in summoning to accomplish took Orison all of one hour. The young mage had no idea of how long it would have taken him in Thoth but considering that the introductory summoned sprite was a little larger and healthier than the standard, he was glad he did. Taking it out to smack around dog sized bugs and using it to heal a few herbalists for nearly a week instead of beating around on a training dummy and wasting time having it heal minor injuries on factory workers who could care less was just icing on the cake.

Mylar commented, "I'd place it at what a hard working Summoner could achieve in around a month. That almost makes your shelling out 200 gold to get us here worth it but you're going to have to really put in spectacular effort if you want to even come close to making the other 200 worthwhile. You'd be better off chasing herbalists around and begging for tips than swatting horn beetles all night and day. Without alchemy, the random herbs they drop aren't going to be of much use-"

Orison, who was in the process of synthesizing a weak potion, spared enough attention to raise an eyebrow at Mylar before returning to his task. In truth, the herbs that the beetles occasionally dropped couldn't be used to make anything by themselves but two of the herbalists who'd ran into a bit of trouble were appreciative and easily coaxed into giving up a couple plants or selling them cheap. Not only had Orison used this chance to make a few introductory potions but also learned that taking herbalist would have been a waste of beginner's training.

Mundane herbalists among the Children were more than capable of providing what an alchemist needed for quite some time as long as one knew where to buy and didn't need to hang on to the ingredients beyond a day or two. Tack on that Orison had already started integrating and slightly moving beyond the drawn boundaries of the information provided by the trainers and the only good thing about learning the gathering training was the world granted ability to horde what had been harvested. Orison wasn't overly interested in doing much hording of raw ingredients to begin with.

The young mage asked, "What is the prevalent theory on the determining factors for what a creature drops?"

Mylar collected his thoughts and said, "There are many unverified ones but two with decent enough evidence to be considered verified. Reim's Distribution states that Children and Chosen who die are primarily responsible for items that make no sense for a creature to drop, such as gold and random equipment. Prime compulsion theory states that creatures will congregate near the particular natural resource that can be found in their drops... That second one also is the explanation for why creatures don't wander too far from their zones and will kill each other if their numbers become too large instead of migrating as the intelligent races would."

The next part of the instruction involved moving to the outer edge of the beginner zone and getting into a few unwinnable positions. After the instructor got them out of it, doing it again until the threat of death was no longer frightening and would no longer cause the student to freeze up. At the edge of the druid beginner zone were wasps the size of small birds of prey. Their stings could paralyze from pain and were nearly impossible to outrun.

Orison was requested to draw three at once, prepare himself to taste some pain and then the instructor would jump in to help. Due to Morrel's training and the gradual effects of the miasma's remaining trickle adjustments of his physique, after being stung once and not seeing the instructor jump in, the young mage dispatched them himself. The instructor simply asked him to draw four and then five when four couldn't overwhelm. When it was six and Orison had been stung enough to actually be paralyzed on his last two, he seethed in pain filled anger as the summoned sprite struggled to keep Orison alive while trying to take them down. Though the little floating ball of silvery green light finally fell, the wasps were distracted by it long enough for Orison's paralysis to wear off.

After finishing them off himself, Orison turned on the instructor and said, "What the hell, Mylar!? If you weren't my instructor, I'd stick a dagger in your a** and remove your hemorrhoids free of charge!"

The currently stony faced man stuttered on the order to draw seven before busting out into a laugh. "I can't do it... I'm supposed to push you to your limit and even if you felt like you were dying, you were only about halfway there. I still had plenty of opportunity to step in. That was your current limit and you knew that five was your safe limit. You kept calm and didn't need me to step in. Don't hold a grudge for me doing my job, alright."

Mo stepped out of hiding where he'd been tailing them out of boredom. "Quite impressive dagger-work. I thought you said he was a primary elementalist but just came to do your instruction first."

Orison shook his head and said, "That was Children taught, if you're thinking I'm an adventurer. It's one of the reasons I chose artificer as my second combat. I figured spirit formed creatures would actually blend well with the magicked constructs as long as I had some actual physical prowess to balance it out."

Mylar and Mo looked at Orison with the same pitying eyes while Mo said, "The training devices introduce supernatural features later on that Children training just can't imitate. The time of arch-summoning and grand constructs are gone. I might be a middle of the barrel druid but even I'm sensitive enough to the turning of Osomo, may the mother source of soul watch over us, to know that it will not return. We will be fortunate if the great magics do not fall next."

Mylar chimed in, "Orison, I thought you were one of the bright ones, not some idealistic dreamer. The basic mixed trainings are only supplemental to other pure ones. Sure, you can dabble into the aspects of four different trainings this way but ultimately all you'll earn is one year gone and a bit more insight. I won't say that's all bad and I certainly wouldn't be so callous as to suggest intentional suicide to learn something else. What I will say is that even the best pair of trainings that lead to nothing more aren't capable of keeping their head up in front of the worst of specialist trainings. This isn't either. It's the absolute worst pairing possible."

Orison kept a pleasant face by act of sheer will, "I will only say this once and will deny having ever said it if another asks. The trainers may make you powerful beyond wildest expectations but they are a crutch that turns into shackles later when you lose the strength to meet its requirements. If you want even a shred of a chance of surpassing the world, go back to the very basics.

"Have Children who learn the hard way fill in the blanks and show you the hows to understand the whys. If you don't, the next whole chapter of your lives will just be facing safe challenges and building a family, nothing more... Oh, you think I speak rudely? What do you think the cataclysms that come every few generations are? They are outsiders who see your world as a prize and fight to claim it.

"Your own 'mother' sings to you her love and desires you to rise but so few ever do that she is left with no option but to flee each time. Surpassing your 'mother' isn't a blasphemy, it's what children are supposed to do. When the day comes that she must flee again, perhaps one of you could be the one that insures Osomo can survive. Perhaps the unthinkable can occur and you won't have to flee at all."

To cut off their arguments, Orison cast the revamped heal he'd finally pieced together after days of observing his sprite and comparing the two reality's models he had. It was weak and unstable but just as effective as the druid's basic heal, looking nothing like any heal that the elementalist or druid had ever seen. Watching the weak but greatly more penetrative effect of his faintly opaline heal, the two instructors fell silent and pensive.

Thus distracted and no longer nattering at him, Orison was reveling in his own discovery. At first, he thought something had gone wrong with Find Objective and then again with telekinesis but becoming 'broken' was the goal. When a spell moved beyond a model and simply became an ability without model, it would be weak, like starting over again. Find Objective was showing signs of gaining additional features and had a slightly increased range. Telekinesis had just broken here and was weak but with time and additional discovery, Orison had no doubts it would grow stronger. After three separate models from three separate existences where used to build the healing model he was using now, it showed signs of becoming 'broken' as well.

A new thought provided by his sub-mind made something clear as well. There was only so much space for these spells that became abilities. At some point, extra spell knowledge would become no more than that, extra. He needed to become more selective about what he tried to elevate before he ran out of room to store them or he'd run out of space. That didn't make learning more models and theory a total waste of time, however. Telekinesis was already showing some signs of picking up traits of other telekinetic models at a rate that only his sub-mind could vaguely observe.

It was just a rudimentary concept at that point but he'd not only have to make sure not to fill up on abilities he didn't really need or want above other choices, he needed to let the ones he had, have room to grow as well. Since his abilities could absorb other concepts to make themselves more versatile and stronger, Orison categorized what he knew. He then divided it up into five greater concepts and an overarching duality he'd focus on above others until he knew more.

Find Objective would become the kernel of Spirit. Healing would become the kernel of Life. Kinetics would become the kernel of Force. His understanding of spacial concepts through the one he possessed and his growing understanding of teleportation would make Space. The faintly understood transmutative properties that existed within his space and conjuration models would form Matter once he understood them both a bit better.

Above and below those concepts were the duality of creation and destruction. Whether individually or combined applications of those kernels, Orison made golems, summoned creatures and conjured things. He used those very same forces to destroy things. The duality existed, in Orison's mind, as nothing more than a sliding scale but that sliding scale accommodated interactions with multiple kernels and allowed concepts that only dwelt partially in one or more, a place to reside.

At the moment, all Orison had done was give a structure for himself and his sub-mind to fit everything he knew into so that he could understand it better and give his growth a definite direction. Since his capacity was finite, he wanted to use it as efficiently as possible. That required some future planning and he felt that he had that covered for the meantime.

When Orison looked up from his thoughts to see the two instructors staring at him with hopeful eyes, Orison said, "I suppose I know a small thing or two I could share but it's equal exchange or nothing!"