Taverish and Evlera pondered the map in front of them. The elderly lightning mage who, until recently, had just been in charge of decoding messages and teaching hopeful young mages how to read and write, was now peering and little models of fortifications.
“I begin to wonder if we are wasting our time here, the Siyene seem to have limitless people and animals to attack our positions with. Every time we make any ground we just lose it somewhere else,” said Elvera with a heavy sigh.
“Rules are rules,” said Taverish. He cutoff anything further he was going to say as the Dean came in.
The Dean’s previously neat white hair and beard was looking decidedly singed and he was covered head to toe in dust as he came in and sat with a heavy thump in one of the chairs facing the map.
The other two raised eyebrows at his appearance. He answered by just reaching out and tipping over one of the little blue models of a watchtower.
Taverish stared at the little watchtower on its side for a moment, “how many did you save?”
The Dean took a long drink, directly from the bottle of brandy that Elvera kept by the map table (the bottle that was becoming a necessity as they studied the map each day). “Three and a half.”
“Err, and a half?” Asked Taverish. His confusion overcoming the sadness from knowing that the watchtower had had fifty people in it that morning. And the Dean had only saved a fraction.
“Two of the new recruits and one civilian messenger that made it out only because of the bravery of student Yole, who took a shaman curse head-on right as I arrived, he’s the half,” answered the Dean.
“Mage Yole you mean,” said Elvera. Her statement carried her derision for the whole situation they found themselves in, with children that had barely graduated from the tower given the title of mage and then thrown into battle. The three of them had lamented about this at length, but had little say in changing anything.
“I think it will matter little to him what we call him now. Though he certainly earned the title after saving those three at the cost of his own mind,” said the Dean.
The shaman curses had somehow proved worse than dying. Those who took a direct hit became mindless shells. Seeing them still breathing, but not able to do more than lie there and be fed gruel was disheartening. Not to mention it used up supplies and beds in the infirmary to keep them alive.
The three sat in miserable silence before the Dean finally broke it, “any new orders since I was gone?”
Taverish shook his head, “still the same, we are to maintain the bulk of our forces here to defend the general.”
Both Taverish and Elvera had magic that was suited to defending a position and the order had come right from the king that they would stay here. The Dean, with his affinity for wind, could zip around the countryside with ease. His magic just wasn’t able to do a lot against the heavily armored beasts from the Siyene that weighed close to two tonnes. But, he could provide warning where it mattered. Or help get survivors out.
The people he sometimes had to leave behind because of his own limits still haunted him when he tried to sleep.
The Dean wasn’t surprised by Taverish’s answer, but he kept hoping something would change.
Elvera let him have another drink before she provided the next bit of bad news, “another group was sent to try and take a castle.”
The Dean winced and tightened his grip on the brandy bottle in his hand, “who?”
Elvera waited for the Dean to get up and move to his desk and pull out a slim leather-bound book. Then she read off five names.
The Dean’s shoulders slumped a little more with each name, but he wrote them all down in his book.
When he finished writing and was just staring at the names in his book, Elvera said, “I’ll send the messenger by tomorrow to pick up the letters for the families.”
The Dean nodded and just continued staring at the names. He would normally visit any family of a young mage that passed. But, the best he could do right now was send them a letter apologizing for not looking after their children better.
He might be ordered to a war zone, but he was still the Dean of a school and considered it his duty. No matter how much he wished someone else could do it. Even just once.

Chadwick was feeling confident with his rate of deconstructing materials after he made it through ice, different types of gemstones (though he still felt a pang of regret every time he turned a glittering ruby into powder so fine it would disappear into the grass, even if they were technically just memories of rubies), four different metals and three different wood types.
Each material had its own internal structure that he just had to find and then break apart the bonds in such a way that a chain reaction would break the rest. For something like ice, or a gemstone, it proved exceptionally easy because of the regular patterns they had inside them. He would just readjust the pattern in the center and ‘poof’.
Things got a little more interesting when the materials had irregularities or contaminants of other material types in them. Vander amused himself by sneaking bugs into the big pieces of ice that his training pillars launched at Chadwick.
Chadwick could certainly cause the ice to rapidly deconstruct, but if he failed to notice the bug he would then get hit in the face by something slimy, or something with pincers, or too many legs, when it flew out of the cloud of fog that the ice had become.
Things got a little trickier with the wooden spheres that fired out. Since knots in the wood, rot, or just the pattern of growth, caused his deconstruction to fail its chain reaction. So he had to find the key spots to start multiple reactions and then fire them all off at the right time.
If he failed to account for a knot, his main reaction would falter there. If he just mistimed it and started a reaction in the knot too soon, it would clash with the main reaction. The results were unpredictable. Most just failed. Others caused more violent reactions. Chadwick wasn’t allowed to dodge the projectiles. But Vander did tell him he was allowed to move if saw that one of his reactions was going to cause the wooden ball to explode, firing chunks of wood out so fast they started burning from the air friction.
Having been staring at the reaction so closely, he could at least see what would happen when it went wrong and make sure he wasn’t in the way. Or just cut up those bits that would come his direction.
This whole process was made all the more difficult by the fact that he had to deconstruct the object as it flew towards him at faster and faster rates. And the objects got gradually larger.
It had taken him six weeks to get through the materials provided up to that point, Vander only letting him pass a material when he could handle multiple different projectiles at a time.
His current material was the most frustrating one, at least since before he learned the trick with the initial stones. But, it was fast moving up the list to be annoyance number one.
He was currently standing in the circle and shivering, readying his focus for the next squirt of water. And once again, when it came, all he managed was the splutter a little as he got a fresh face full of water.
Chadwick was very averse to quitting. But, the four days of getting sprayed with water was wearing on his nerves. At least with the stones he was working on cutting them up in smaller and smaller pieces before the found the correct way to do it. He had felt like he was making progress there.
With the water he was at a complete standstill. No matter what he did to the particles inside it, the water just flowed in to fill the change. He couldn’t do much more than make a small ripple in the jet of water.
“It’s impossible!,” Chadwick shouted. Mostly at the three posts firing the water at him. But, also to the universe at large.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Starting to realize that are you, boy?” Asked Vander, sounding amused.
Chadwick turned to glare at him, his angry look spoiled slightly by another squirt of water hitting him in the ear. “Realize what? That it’s impossible? I said that on day one,” said Chadwick hotly.
“Yes but on day one, you had not put any effort in yet to confirm your hypothesis. Now you have,” answered Vander.
Chadwick just stared at him, “so, it really is impossible?”
Vander beckoned him out of the circle and handed him a towel. “It was important that you discover this on your own. Believing something to be true because someone told you it is, or you just assume so and didn’t try? That’s when your magic will stagnate.”
Chadwick dried himself off and waited for the rest of the lecture, he could tell when Vander had something to teach and was going to get on a roll.
“This also taught you something about the limitations of our magic. Fluids are our very anathema. If you ever find yourself facing a water mage, you either kill him fast or get out of there. Because you have no defense,” continued Vander. Then he asked, “knowing what you just learned about liquids, what other types of mages should you be wary of?”
Chadwick pondered this, “there are many different variations on liquid mages. Even someone like Taverish with his molten rock is really just more liquid, depending on the temperature. Are there gas mages?”
Vander nodded approvingly, “yes to the molten rock, though it tends to harden quickly. Making them often inclined to build fortifications with it. And at that point it’s just stone again. There are gaseous-type mages and they are certainly on the list to avoid confrontations with. Any others?”
“There has to be a whole realm of conceptual mages that don’t do anything with particles. Time and prediction are some of the only ones I have heard of,” said Chadwick.
“I doubt you will ever meet a time mage that wants you dead and live to tell the tale boy, when they lose a fight, they just try again. And if he finds he can’t beat you, he will simply go back far enough to not even meet you. Better to avoid and let him die of old age, something time mages are prone to since they don’t get to relive moments of time without cost, they continue aging each time,” said Vander.
Chadwick looked alarmed at the concept of fighting a time mage without even realizing, but then shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do about it and the Dean made it sound like he hadn’t heard of any time mages since he began at the tower. “What about light or shadow mages?,” he asked.
“Ah, yes. Those ones require an understanding of what light really is before you can effectively deal with them. Most ‘shadow’ mages are just light mages that have a better understanding of removing light. But there was a true darkness mage once, an actual opposite to light. A darkness that eats up light,” said Vander then pulled out a large book, “this one will help you get a better understanding of light. Something you will need before you can hope to do anything with light particles.”
Chadwick picked up the book and moved to the fire, before he could open it, Vander spoke again.
“I want you to spend a few hours a day on that one, but continue your enchanting study and work on the bag from your conditional magic teacher. Things might sound bad with your chances against certain types of mages. But enchanting is how you shore up your weaknesses. A simple device that pumps out fast-moving fresh air can counter almost everything a gas mage can do, for example,” instructed Vander.
Chadwick brightened up, he was almost dry. Had a new book. And would get to continue his enchanting work. Something he had maintained his passion for ever since he learned of it.
It was a good day.

Chadwick cut another perfect notch into his fishing rod with his magic. The notch was so small that no one without his special eyes would even see it. Certainly not deep enough to risk damaging his rod. Since he started fishing on the first day and always made a point to at least fish once a day, he decided to count the days on his rod.
He was getting pretty sick of living on fish and whatever edible plants he could find, but Vander did at least prove to be a phenomenal cook. He would routinely have Chadwick find particular herbs in the surrounding forest and hang them in bunches to dry. Purely for flavoring meals. Every now and then Chadwick would make the effort to trap something in the forest, just for some variety.
He counted the notches on his rod and realized it was his twelfth birthday. At least it would if he was actually aging in here. He hadn’t given much thought to how long he had been here, sometimes just mindlessly adding a new notch to the rod, unaware of how many were already on there.
He looked around at the scenery, it was a vivid tapestry to him now with his new eyes. Taking in the natural beauty of their location and the sparkling stream full of fish in front of him. He shrugged to himself. If he was forced to spend years somewhere without aging, this was certainly about as perfect a spot as he could picture.
He only bothered to bring one fish back, they were so well stocked that he was in no hurry to deplete the river any further. Not that it mattered. Vander insisted that the river would never run out of fish. Another perk of the memory books.
As Chadwick strolled up to the camp, he spoke to Vander who was stirring a pot of something, “if I’m counting the days right, I would be turning twelve today.”
“Oh?” Replied Vander, “perhaps a celebration is in order then. Ever seen fireworks boy?”
Chadwick just looked confused, “I’ve never heard the term.”
“Aha, we finally found a word the young scholar doesn’t know,” said Vander with a smile, “they were invented by the Siyene. But the principles are fairly simple, devices that burn through different materials in pretty colors. Easier to just show you at night, because my description is not doing them justice.”
Chadwick looked around, “still a number of hours before dark. I might continue on with the book of magical creatures until then.”
“Actually, boy. I think it’s time you finished that bag,” said Vander, nodding his head towards Chadwicks enchanting worktable.
Chadwick jumped up in excitement, “I’ve almost got a 31-point conditional down, finishing it should be easy!”
Vander had insisted Chadwick practice the conditional magic required for the bag thoroughly. To not stop practicing until Vander gave him the ok to actually try applying it to the materials. Partially because this level of enchantment would destroy the materials if he got it wrong. But mostly because if he did get it wrong it might explode and take half the forest with it. Spatial magic was not something to mess around with lightly.
Chadwick almost leaped over to his table in his excitement to get started. The entire bag was assembled and every rune symbol was carved to perfection on the brass frame. The leather was mostly for comfort and appearances, as the bag would technically be able to function without it.
The bag itself just looked like a rectangle with one open end and handles, though there was a flap that could cover the top. The brass frame inside it kept the shape and had a larger section, where the opening was, that controlled the process of adding and removing things.
Chadwick had made a few adjustments from the original design. Since you couldn’t reach into the bag to retrieve things, anyone who tried would just find an empty space, Sal had originally designed it with voice commands. You would assign a name to anything you added in, and could retrieve it by speaking that name.
Chadwick didn’t like the lack of elegance in that, especially because it required memorizing the exact name of everything that you had put in there and you couldn’t store multiple items with the same name. Instead, he replaced it with an intent control system. He would be able to immediately know what was in the bag and summon it with a thought.
He would have to hold an image of the item in his mind as he put it inside, and feed a conditional trigger to the right rune. But that was barely harder than a 3-point conditional. But, once he did that, the bag could provide him back the mental pictures of the items.
Chadwick had been practicing this particular bit of conditional magic with the same little discs he practiced with in his class in the tower. He had tested every possible thing he could think of to make sure the little discs would light up when expected. He was certain he had it perfect, but Vander’s warnings made him cautiously re-check everything.
Once he was finished with his third re-check. Chadwick decided not to hesitate anymore and slid the 30-point conditional magic into the materials and hooked it all up to the matching rune symbols that he then filled with magic to charge them up.
The bag just sat there. No flash of light or trumpets heralding his success. He almost doubted it had worked after the lack of fanfare.
“So, boy. I see we didn’t blow up and the bag still seems to be there,” said Vander. Casually tasting the fish stew he was making, adding a little more salt.
Chadwick was just staring at the bag, “but, that was so easy!”
Vander laughed, “anything is easy if you practice it enough boy. This is one particular task where a little extra practice to be sure, was time well spent. You are seeing the results of that practice.”
Chadwick started to grin and then grabbed a spare hunk of brass off his table, activated the needed runes on the bag and dropped the brass in. He flinched back a little, still not certain that nothing was going to go wrong.
After no explosions or spatial phenomena occurred, he leaned over and peered into the bag. Which looked decidedly empty. He reached out, activated the retrieval rune and fished the brass lump out of the top of the bag. To anyone not watching closely, he would’ve seemed to grab the brass from the top of the bag. But, anyone up close would have seen the brass just appear out of nowhere and land in his hand.
Chadwick had a slightly crazed grin on his face as he turned back to Vander, holding up a lump of brass, “it works!”
Vander tasted his stew, finally nodding in satisfaction at whatever flavor he found, “I guess you can finally stash all that food somewhere more useful. Instead of all these racks strewn about the campsite. Starting to look like a mess here boy.”
Chadwick grinned, he knew his instructor well enough to know that he was as excited as Chadwick, “I should be able to re-do it in a matter of hours once I leave the book.”
Vander nodded, then looked serious for a moment, “let me ask you boy. If you had a choice, would you consider what you achieved now ‘good enough’ and willingly return to the real world with a passing grade from me? Or, would you rather perfect every aspect I can teach, no matter how long it took?”
Chadwick gave this due consideration, tapping the piece of brass against his leg as he considered, “I’ve never heard of someone coming back into a book. I assume this is a once in a lifetime chance?”
Vander nodded hesitantly.
“Well,” began Chadwick, “then I’d say perfection takes time to achieve, so we best get started.”
Vander gave perhaps the broadest smile that Chadwick had ever seen from him and said, “this is the attitude I like to see in a student.”