Lessons
Still she speaks, seeming to not have noticed your earlier distraction. You try to follow along, but even if you'd been paying attention the whole time it feels as though what she is saying is so very far beyond anything you could possibly be expected to know.
“...after the expansion of the Western arcane focal, we began to build. The magic spread throughout our world and its people. Feats of engineering which would have been impossible to even conceive of before now were shared into the minds of some, and others with magical ability enough to construct based upon those visions did so. It was then we realised much as it goes against most of the laws of physics, magic isn't entirely unrelated. Magic, odd as it sounds, is a substance here. A tangible thing, measurable in power, in quantity, even in mass. That's why you see it up there.”
She points to one of the spired buildings of the city.
“Magic, when not bound to a person or when used by them, rises. The spires gather it and return it to the earth, rather than allowing it to dissipate. Because of that, we no longer are bound only to the temples themselves as fonts of arcane power. So, while our jobs are much more ceremonial these days, we're still privileged to have a great deal of respect and love from the rest of the world. After all, without people like me and you...”
Her voice trails off for a moment, and the wolf frowns as she catches herself.
“Without people like me and Serrin, that is. We wouldn't have this world. A world where people can support themselves and provide for themselves with magic, and thus devote their time, their energy to doing things they love, and sharing those things with others.”
She stops, standing in the centre of the courtyard beside a large and beautiful fountain. Only, rather than water running from the fountain, you see a rainbow. A rainbow of fractured light pouring and tumbling down the several tiers of the stone fountain, before finally pooling as a silvery, shimmering liquid in its base. The wolf sits down upon the edge of the beautiful fountain, sighs, and looks you up and down.
“So. Do you think you want to continue Serrin's work? Who knows. When the time is up you may be able to return to the chamber and meditate there as he was. You may find yourself swept off to another world, or you might need to physically seek out whatever object it is that will allow you to move on. That is, if you decide to move on. I... I know that choice is yours, and yours alone, and I respect the arcane too much to question that choice.”
Written by Jeeves on 13 September 2017