Chapter 28

There is a way for mundane people to be able to cast magic like any Wizard or Sorcerer. A strictly regulated process, commonly called Myst Doping, can be taken in a variety of forms. The substances used for Myst Doping are called MyCast. MyCast can be taken by ingestion, inhalation, or injection, depending on the form. Despite the strict regulations, the addictive substances still plague the streets of many cities across the globe because of street alchemists making dirty batches. 

Day 200 Quenchenday

The day prior was the quarterly exams. Well, exams for everyone save for me. For the past two weeks, Thallos had been bound and determined to drive me to the brink of madness and over with pain. The new daily training regimen consisted of hours of sparing with assorted weapons. While I sparred with Thallos, he quizzed me on a topic based on the day. If I got a question wrong, he would maim me and have Tessa heal me back to fighting condition just to send me back at the meat-grinder of a man. Over the course of two weeks, I had been stabbed, slashed, hacked, punctured, burned by both fire and acid, had limbs crushed, and bones snapped. The pain never got easier to manage, and the bastard swapped up how he maimed me every time to make sure I didn’t get accustomed to one type of pain. Because Shards forbid that I become accustomed to getting stabbed in the gut by a man I thought I could trust.

If I was being honest, I did still trust him somewhat. He made sure Tessa was on hand every day we trained, and he did make sure that I was at least somewhat coherent before picking the training back up. For every question I got wrong, he would give me the correct answer after I regained my wits and would explain why the correct answer was correct and what I did wrong. Luckily, his mood lightened after the third day of what I had been so ‘affectionately’ calling Stab Training. He always seemed to know when I was about to mentally break. When I’d strained my will and mental faculties to the brink of utter collapse, he would stop everything and just sit down and talk with me. He called it his fatherly uncle heart-to-heart talks. He always seemed to know how to calm me down or get me pumped up and refocused. After each of these talks, I felt both centered and dedicated to becoming better. The second week, he pushed the training time for an hour longer than the week before.

Every day after the training, when I fell upon my stiff mattress for a night of sleep as deep as the dead, I would break down. Almost every day after training with Thallos, I would curl into a fetal ball on my side, holding my knees to my horns, and sobbed for what might only have been a half-hour but felt like most of the night. I never told Thallos about those nights out of fear of him thinking me too weak for the training. There was no turning back without losing everything, so I couldn’t even seem weak. I had to bulldoze ahead and not stop for anything. 

That day was Quenchenday, meaning a day off from the murderous madness that my uncle submitted me to. It was almost noon, and I lay there in my bed, imitating a corpse. A heavily traumatized, utterly exhausted, and mildly peckish corpse. For most of the year up to that point, I had spent a good chunk of my private time in my room in full dive, going through the academy’s restricted network I had official access to, rooting around through the files for anything of interest or designing three-dimensional test models for tools and gadgets or running tests on theories. I had become fascinated with the full dive experience, existing completely in a digital reality and the technology that made it work. But since my training with my uncle started, everything else had taken a back seat in my life. I hadn’t full-dived or tinkered with anything since starting this new butcher show he called training. The only studying I had done since the start of this new routine was all on topics that I hadn’t had astounding scores in the classes. That meant I didn’t study mystechnologies or mathematics. I got very little quizzing in chemistry and alchemy, and I only received teaching on myst and magic theory from classes specifically for training me to use my new so-called talent. 

A talent that hadn’t manifested almost at all in those two weeks. The only time something happened was on Honarday, when the Zenwel twins and Master Mystagogue Neckar performed a test. It sounded like a bad idea from the start, and I hadn’t wanted to participate, but they coerced me with both promises of safety and threats of severe punishment. Once I was compliant, albeit apprehensive to the point of a near panic attack, they proceeded with the experiment. The test in question was simple. They strapped me to an operating table set in a position to hold me in a near-standing position. They stabbed me with IV needles into an artery and vein in the same arm and cycled my blood through a spectrum scanner and myst bombardment ray chamber. They would draw oxygenated blood from the artery, pass it through the bombardment chamber, where they would hit it with a variety of different elements in energy form, then scan it before pumping it back into me.

Please note that the blood was pumped back into me directly without normalizing it or any system to stop and hold the process should the blood become toxic. I had been nervous about the experiment, but the masters all promised me it was perfectly safe. I suspected that my magic mentors were mentally unstable to one degree or another, but looking back on it now, they lied and were toying with my life just to get some idea of what made me function. What they called safe was far from the real meaning of the word.

The resulting effects on the blood were minimal from most elements. Most of the elements had little to no effect, being completely absorbed into my blood. This only raised more questions that seemed to drive the Mystagogues into a near frenzy. Things didn’t change through the process until they tested Eldritch Myst on my blood. You know, the incredibly unstable element. At the moment my blood was infused with the raw and volatile element, it detonated with a cacophonous eruption. The blast was powerful enough to not only rupture the tube holding the blood but annihilate the bombardment apparatus. It tore the main chamber of the device open. The top peeled open like a fruit. Smoke bellowed from the remains of the chamber, and sparks flew awry. All the instructors lept back from the bloom of black and green power and looked both startled and annoyed. Me, on the other hand. I practically leaped out of my skin and was trying to calm my racing heart, given the now openly flowing tube of blood on the floor. My efforts weren’t particularly effective.

Luckily, one of the twins turned off the pump before I could bleed out, but I lost enough to make me dizzy. Now, whether the dizziness was because of the blood loss itself or because of the sight of that much of my blood on the floor, I have no idea.

I was still a little shaken up from the day before, but I tried not to let it get to me. It was a new day for me, a chance to start anew. I needed to relax and find some modicum of joy in the little time I could find to be with my friends. But at that moment, in the late morning, I lay sprawled across my bed like some discarded manikin dressed in nothing more than boxer briefs and a wife-beater undershirt, my usual sleeping attire. I needed to find some semblance of satisfaction in my day off, but I was emotionally dead on my feet, or in this case, on my back. I stared up at the overhang above my bed, silently lamenting my choice to follow Thallos and simultaneously chiding myself for lamenting. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. More like stuck on the end of a blade, like a piece of meat on a spit.

I just couldn’t get over the fact that this new training revolved around maiming me every time I made a mistake. But the way Thallos explained the function and intent of the Dark Hunter position, one slip-up in the field could mean the end of more lives than I dared to think about. I was shocked that every Dark Hunter had to go through this training. If they had to go through the same daily butcher fest, then they had to either be satyr shit insane or bonafide badasses. Could I become that skilled? Become the one they called when no one else could get the job done. A better question was, could I withstand another six years of stab training? I shuddered at the thought of six more years of getting punctured like a pincushion, sliced like a side of lamb, and bludgeoned like one of the training dummies from martial combat class.

A knock at my door shocked me out of my brooding. I half-heartedly rolled off my bed to fall to the floor and shambled my way to my feet. I figured it was Nel coming to get me for food.

THUD THUD THUD! Came the knocking at my door. I dragged myself to the door, shouting, “Yeah, yeah, I hear ya! Keep your knickers on!” as I went. I pressed the button control for the door and watched it slide open to reveal none other than Thallos shouldering a bulging black rucksack and looking down at me with a raised brow.

“Do I look like someone who would wear knickers, boy?”

My face paled, and I frantically sought for a reply, only to find my tongue had turned to a dead fish in my mouth. I was terrified. Did I just tick off my master? Was I about to get the beating of a lifetime? I was on the brink of another panic attack when he broke out into an amused grin.

“Come on, kid, do you really think I have no sense of humor?” He cocked his head as if he was about to make a witty comment with that same cocked brow. “I get that I’m scary during training, but don’t forget that I’m a person too. Not just that, I’m your uncle, by the will of the Shards.” He affectionately slapped me on the shoulder before gently guiding me to the side as he entered my room. “Come now, boy, don’t be so tense. Now, let’s take a look at your room.”

He strolled into my room and tossed the sack from atop his shoulder against the wall beside my Black Rack, displaying my training weapons. The amused Wild Elf tucked his hands into his pockets and spun on one heel in a full three hundred and sixty degrees. He seemed to take in everything in that few seconds as he spun back around to face me.

“I’m impressed. Most boys your age leave their room in total shambles, but your room is mostly organized. The only thing that I can see that’s in chaos is your workbench.” He pointed over to said workbench with a thumb. The bench in question had three projects in varying states of completion. Tools lay askew, components scattered in a manner that seemed like sheer disarray but was, in actuality, my own controlled chaos.

“Th-thank you?” I asked more than answered.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, correct?”

I get a tentative nod, looking between him and his bag with wary eyes.

“Well, boy, I’m guessing you didn’t know that there was an assembly of all classes for an announcement yesterday.”

“What? No. I’ve heard nothing about it.”

Thallos sauntered over to the massive black bag and opened it as he spoke. “Well, they made a change in an effort to improve the morale of the student body since most of the students have very limited access to the outside world for safety purposes. And initiate Slates like yourself are under a Full Shade protocol, meaning you have no access to the outside world no matter the circumstance. So, to help the students feel more comfortable, the academy is allowing you all to wear casual civilian attire on Quenchendays. Most students coming to the academy bring along at least a few changes of clothes if for nothing else than the travel to get here since the academy is hidden in the middle of a sphinx riddle nowhere. And if I remember right, I got you some actual clothes when I first found you, correct?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Three t-shirts, two hoodies, five pairs of cargo pants, and just as many sets of socks and boxer briefs.” 

“Well, I’m pretty sure that they were serviceable, but nothing to show off. I’m also pretty sure that you outgrew most of those clothes.”

“Really?” I asked in speculation.

“Tell me, boy, how many times have you had to exchange your uniform so far?”

I gave a shrug as I looked at the ceiling in thought. “Well, that’s hard to say. Before joining your training regimen, I needed to have them replaced a good fourteen times or so, but I lost count. It became pretty regular when Mallrimor started to use fire magic as a regular method of torture. But as of starting this new training, I’ve needed to think of another method given the regular abuse, and I had to get creative.” I stepped over to my workbench and picked up a device I had been tinkering with and honing. It was a gray stick only a little longer than the width of my hand. The top side was rounded and clear, housing four fragment-sized myst crystals. In order from left to right, the elements were Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water. The underside of the device was a set of eight needle-like ends set into an array that let them move across the device, left, right, up, and down. “After the first session of intense training, I had to get my uniform replaced, and the quartermaster flipped. He went totally dacker when he thought I was seriously injured. I had to tell the nice man that it was a training accident and that I was already healed.”

I shot him an annoyed look as I tossed him the device. “After the poor guy thought I was almost dead, I realized that there was no way I could just keep getting new uniforms after every training session with you. Not without letting the whole academy know what’s going on. So I designed that.” I pointed to the item as Thallos inspected it. “I’m calling it a Repirend, but the name is as much a work in progress as the gizmo itself. It uses the Core Four elements to remove all blood and stains and seamlessly mend any tears in fabric.”

Thallos held the device up to the skylight. “How innovative. I’m impressed, boy. I was wondering how you were going to work your way around that little problem.”

“Little?” I scoffed. “You backed me into a corner, Uncle. I had to get creative to get out of it. Besides, what do you think would happen if I walked across academy grounds in a gore-soaked uniform?”

Thallos gave a noncommittal shrug before tossing the repirend back to me. “It was part of your training. When I went through the training, I got remarkably good at stealth work and avoiding detection, and when I had to be in public, I would break into other students’ rooms in the night and steal a uniform.”

I gave him a look of total shock, my jaw ajar as I tried to wrap my head around the morality of that solution. He gave an amused smirk and chuckled at the look on my face before waving the topic away like an annoying fly.

“We got very off-topic. What I was trying to get at was, when you got your uniform replaced by the quartermaster, did they have a tailor take your measurements every time?”

“I never really thought much about it, but yeah, I think so.”

Thallos Gestured to my locker. “How about you snag one of those old pairs of pants I got you and compare them to your current leg length?” 

I did as he said and pulled out one of the pairs of camo cargo pants and held them against my legs. The pants that had been a quarter-inch too long before were now an inch too short, the cuffs not even reaching my ankles. I looked at the change in puzzlement. I didn’t feel any taller than I did when I first arrived.

“See, that’s what I thought, and that’s why I brought this.” He slapped the bag even as he dug through it with his other hand. He tossed me a wad of black fabric that I managed to catch with a slight lunge. I unwadded what I found to be yet another pair of cargo pants, slightly worn. I held them up against my waist to find them slightly too large. Before I could ask anything, I found another wad thrown at my head. That one unfolded in flight to reveal itself as a forest green t-shirt emblazoned with the emblem of a band I was vaguely aware of, a cyber death metal band that was big in Sollarra, the nation just south of the mountains we were in. Then came another wad, and another and another. When all was said and done, I wound up with eight t-shirts and three hoodies, with imagery ranging from niche pop culture to the obscure. I also wound up with six more pairs of boxer briefs and socks, two pairs of boots, a pair of sneakers, and eight pairs of cargo pants in a range of colors and materials, to include one pair made of black latex with bright purple trim and excessively wide cuffs. Thallos called them ‘trip pants’. My guess was that they were called that because you would likely trip on the legs or maybe because only people tripping on some drug or another would wear them. The range of clothes came in any state, from fresh and new to worn with holes and partially threadbare.

Thallos helped me lay them out for looking over and even provided hangers for the shirts. I didn’t want to be rude to my uncle, so I agreed to take all the clothing and thanked him for it. As I began folding and putting away clothes, I couldn’t help but forcefully not look at the drawer at the base of my locker, where I hid the packet of mystery powder. I traveled back and forth from bed to locker, conveying my new articles of clothing while Thallos folded them or mounted them on hangers before handing them off to me. On the fifth trip, Thallos spoke up in a casual, matter-of-fact voice. “A friend of yours spoke to me on my way here. A second-year by the name of Roserra Swiftpaw. She mentioned that you had something you wanted to show me.”

I froze, half bent over, as I laid a pair of pants atop the stack at the bottom of my locker. “She said it was a baggy you had questions about,” he continued.

“I-I don’t know what she’s talking about.” I stammered. Even I could hear the lie in my voice.

“Tisk tisk tisk. It looks like we are going to need to work on your lying, or you’ll never pass the Spycraft tests. Iver, you know you can trust me. Now, speak honestly. What do you have that I need to know about?”

Should I tell him? I wondered. Would he understand? Could I trust him? He’d spent the past two weeks breaking me. I had just told myself that I trusted him, but could I trust him to that extent? The stuff was clearly illegal, so what if he thought I was using whatever the stuff was? What if I got into trouble? How bad would it be? Expulsion?

No. I couldn’t think that way. Thallos picked me up off the street and not only got me to this academy but got me prepared to get into the academy and, even then, was training me. I even knew that despite the beatings he was giving me, he didn’t want to do it, but I still did so because I needed to get prepared for the position I was going to take up. I needed to trust him. Besides, Rose trusted him enough to mention the stuff to him. Rose was a good judge of character. Right?

I stood up straight, mechanically closed the door, and pressed my back to the locker. “I brought the stuff to Rose’s attention, and she got disturbingly agitated and told me to hide the packet and show no one. Do you promise I won’t get in trouble for having whatever it is?”

Thallos took a seat at the edge of my bed as he waved away the question. “No, no. I promise nothing bad will happen if you show me what you‘ve got.”

Before I opened the drawer, I took a deep breath. I walked over to Thallos on wooden legs and deposited the plastic baggy in his waiting hand. I took a step back and impatiently waited, hands gripped behind my back as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

He sniffed the packet before dipping his finger into the light blue powder and tasting it as I had. “Ah! It’s a zip pouch.”

“What now?” I asked.

“A packet of MyCast called a zip pouch.” He answered simply.

“You mean the drug that lets anyone cast magic? Isn’t that stuff illegal?”

“Illegal when made by anyone who isn’t certified. The legal stuff is strictly controlled. Where did you get it?”

“Master Mystagogue Neckar dropped it after going stark raving mad and fleeing the library. Why would she have it?”

“Mystagogue Neckar? She must have run out of M-Juice if she’s using zip pouches.” Thallos said this so casually that one of the head instructors of the academy was addicted to a controlled substance.

“What is M-Juice?”

“It’s MyCast injection fluid that she normally takes.” 

“Wait, everyone knows she’s on this stuff? It can’t be legal.”

“No, it is legal. She has a condition that requires her to take MyCast regularly.”

“What kind of condition would require her to take an addictive substance regularly?”

“It’s a condition only Gnomes can have called Well Capacity Degradation. Gnome casters are born with a massive Myst Well that will never increase with time or use. Instead, they have a chance of a diminishing Well size.”

“But she’s as insane as Kassidan's parade.” I pressed.

Thallos gave a half-shrug. “Her people are prone to what you and I would call madness. You need to keep in mind that their mind doesn’t work like ours. Their body doesn’t even react the same way to Myst the same way ours does.”

“How so?”

Thallos gave me a peeved look and sighed. “I’m guessing you didn’t know that normal healing magic doesn’t work on Gnomes.”

“No.”

“Then I’m guessing that you also didn’t know that they can’t use most cybernetics.”

“Why?” I asked

“Like I said, their body isn’t like ours. Their nervous system works completely differently compared to ours. They did come from a different realm than ours.” he waved away any further questions like he was batting flies. “Enough of this talk. What matters is that you’re not in trouble and you got some new clothes. How about you change and go meet up with Rose and those other friends of yours.”

And so, I dropped the subject and did as he recommended.