The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage

[56] Specialization

Tanisha woke several hours before dawn and couldn’t go back to sleep. She put on her scale armor, which had apparently been cleaned by the servants at some point. She was frustrated and decided to release that frustration with a morning run. Bjorn joined her, but she could tell he wasn’t a morning hydra and not happy about being up so early. 

She used her skills to enhance her physicality as much as possible and took off running around the Isi estate. There was a path that went around the perimeter of the training field that she followed when she found it. She appreciated the time to just clear her mind and focus on her breathing. She could feel the impact of each step, the sensation of her muscles flexing, the mana and maya moving to her will, the sound of her heart beating. The longer she ran, the faster she got, the more she could lose herself to the feeling of power in her body.

Tanisha only allowed herself to see the path in front of her. She blocked out all other sensations, feeling her core and maya veins. The power responded to her, it flowed into her muscles and begged to be used by her. It wanted direction and she responded, but slowly and controlled, the way Joha had shown. Then something clicked, some spell or arcanist thing she didn’t mean to do connected and activated. The mana and maya had a direction, forming a spell-form she had never intended. 

She came back to her senses and saw she had outrun Bjorn, who was at a full gallop. For a single step the world was frozen as greenish-blue maya flowed from her mouth. Mana coated her body in a slight shimmer and as the second step landed the world shifted and blurred. In an instant she was ten feet further forward than she should have been. Unfortunately, ten feet was far enough forward to shoot her off the path and into a bush, where she failed to stop before tripping over a root and tumbling into a tree trunk.

“Ahhh! What the agghh.” Tanisha moaned in pain as she picked herself up off the ground. “What was that? Why has the maya changed color?”

She brushed herself off; luckily the Mana Armor and Maya Cloak were active so it hadn’t hurt too much. Bjorn caught up to her, and when he saw that she was fine she felt him laugh at her. She playfully chided him for a little while and then got back to the road. She decided to check her skills to see if she did get something new, but was disappointed to find no changes. 

“Did I use a Flash Step or something by accident?” Tanisha questioned. She looked at Bjorn who nodded affirmatively. “Really! I did?” She bounced up and down in excitement. “I’m a mage so it would have had to be Blink, right? I can use Blink, me! I don’t know how I did it, but I did.”

She guessed that she didn’t gain the skill because she didn’t really know how to cast the effect. So she would need to figure out how to recreate the skill on purpose. She thought it should be easy enough since she did it once already. After another hour of running and no result she figured that maybe it was harder than she realized. 

A few minutes before dawn Joha and Æsa found her on the running path. They went back to the same open training field with the strange runes as before. This time, however, Joha pulled a caragi bowl from his maya. The bowl was metal with the same design as the smoking pipes which showed flowers on fire. As soon as he placed the bowl on the ground it billowed out white maya that filled the training area within minutes.

Tanisha decided not to tell Joha about the incident with Blink. Instead she wanted to figure it out and surprise him with it in one of their sparring matches to get the upper hand. She would talk to Helina and see if she had any tips on how to use the ability. 

Other than the maya mist, the training was a mixture of flexibility, bodily and breathing control, and maya manipulation. Joha also had Bjorn perform stretches while breathing in the white maya.

“Okay, we are done for now,” Joha said after one final stretch. “We will leave for the permit office at noon; be ready.”

“Okay, I am going to see Helina if you need me,” Tanisha said with a tired huff. “Bjorn, come on Big Man.”

She and Bjorn found Helina in the same gazebo as before. Helina was waiting for them, and the group went to a nearby open field with a water feature. Helina and Tanisha sat down in lotus position facing each other while Bjorn wandered around.

“Okay, so we will start with your understanding of the different disciplines and their specializations. What do you know about the magical disciplines?” Helina asked.

“There are six disciplines: Nature, Starlight, Darkness, Elemental, Spellcraft, and the rarest, Anti-magic. Interestingly, Ingrid is an Anti-magic mage and Ulfar a Starlight mage.” Tanisha coughed to get back on track. “Each discipline is like a category of similar magics that use very similar principles to function. A wizard and mage can learn any discipline to some extent, but only a mage can specialize, and only in one discipline. Mages may specialize in multiple aspects of that discipline. A nature mage for example will have an affinity to any of the Nature based specializations like Beast Taming, Botanokinesis, Healing, Body Enhancement, Sanguine, and Toxic magic.”

Helina smiled brightly. “That is correct, although learning multiple specialties can be difficult as well. Many mages have very specific affinities. I for example am an Elemental mage but have specialized in Hydrokinesis. This is because it comes far easier to me than the other elements.” A gust of wind focused around the small woman, lifting her off the ground weightlessly for a moment before setting her back down. “Aerokinesis…” She opened her hands; a ball of fire appeared in one and electricity sparked in the other, “Pyrokinesis and Electrokinesis are the only other specialties I can use, and not very well mind you.” She looked winded from just the small exertion. “That still leaves Ionikinesis, Geokinesis and Ferrokinesis spells that I can’t use at all.

“Wendigo have an abnormally large population of magic casters; most of your people are blessed with some form of magic,” Helina continued excitedly. “There is a theory that everyone who has magic is a mage, however their discipline has simply not been discovered yet so we don’t know their affinity because it isn’t one of the six, but instead some unknown seventh or eighth.” She took a breath. “Sorry, that’s aside from the point, but who knows; maybe that chaotic core of yours is the secret to a new discipline of Chaos magic.

“The first thing we are going to do is see which specialty you resonate with the most. Hopefully it’s one of the ones I can use, but if it is one of the three I can’t, unfortunately I won’t be much help. You obviously have some familiarity with aerokinesis since you can use the Mystic Wind Hands, so we will look at your wind affinity first. Hold out your hands for me and repeat after me. And don’t worry, this is a specialty test to see how the elements respond to you.”

Tanisha did as instructed and Helina clasped onto her outstretched hands. She spoke words of power which were unspeakable to those that did not have a connection to mana. The words of power vibrated the air with each vocalization. To a normal person it would sound almost like gibberish, whispers or songs in a foreign language. To magic casters that could parse the meaning it would sound like a series of code and commands the formula that made up the world. 

The spell caused the wind to pick up around them, forming a whirlwind that picked up grass and dirt around them. Tanisha felt that it was her mana alone that formed the spell; Helina only stabilized the effect somehow. Helina’s eyes were wide as she watched the swirling winds. Magic air was visible, much like the Mystic Wind Hands. Tanisha’s magic was tinged with blue-green maya, giving the air a shimmer of infernal energy. They stopped the spell and prepared for the next.

“Well, we can say with high certainty you can be an aerokinetic mage,” Helina said. “Next we will test my specialty, water. Just follow my words again.”

The women continued with the water aptitude test, and a spout of water rose up from the ground between them. The water had the same infernal properties as the air. The spout continued to rise, forming into a ring that floated in the air. It dispersed into a fine mist once the spell was over, and Helina jumped up with glee.

“Yes, you are a Hydrokinetic mage too!” Helina said excitedly. “I was so worried that I wouldn’t really be able to teach you much.”

“So, we can get started then?” Tanisha asked.

“No, first we have to test the rest of your specialty affinities.” She plopped back on the ground and reached out her hands. “You may have four like me, so let's keep going.”

The women went over fire next, which caused a blue-green mana and maya fireball to appear between them. Then electricity, which caused blue-green sparks to arc out from their skin into the ground around them. The sensation of which felt weird and oddly relaxing to the muscles.

“You have a strong affinity for each of the ones we tested,” Helina said. “Wind is your highest and fire is your lowest so far. Even still, they are all greater than any affinity I have, with the exception of water, and that is only because I have decades of experience with water magic. The next ones I won’t be able to help guide you through the spells as much, so you will have to go slowly, okay? If you feel anything abnormal stop and let the mana go. We will try Ionikinesis first. It will feel a lot like a mixture of fire and electricity. I have also heard people that can use it are called plasma mages.