Chapter 124: All of Them?

“I don’t get it,” Stryg mumbled.

“It’s pretty simple. You were taught two languages,” Loh leaned back in her chair. “I’m just not sure why. How old were you when you learned to write?”

“About 10, I think?”

“You were too young to be recognized as a mageborn… Why would someone teach you?”

“I don’t know, he took pity on me, I guess,” Stryg looked away.

“He? Who taught you how to write exactly?”

The memory of the eccentric goblin crossed his mind. His loss still pained Stryg more than he had realized. “...He was one of the older hunters in the village. His name was Sigte.”

“Was?”

“He died. Dire bear mauling.” Stryg swallowed and cleared his throat, “Most of the tribe didn’t like him, he was an outcast like me. Although Sigte was a strong hunter, so people respected him. He didn’t have to be nice to a disobedient little kid like me, but he was.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Loh said quietly. “What mage rank was Sigte? Master? High-Master?”

Stryg shook his head, “Sigte wasn’t even a mageborn. He was really good with a spear and was a pretty decent shot with a bow too.”

Loh furrowed her brow, “Are you telling me that a savage hunter without any magical background had an extensive knowledge of the arcane language?”

“Sigte was not a savage, none of us are!” Stryg yelled.

The pain from the past had been dredged up to the surface and all it took was Loh’s words to ignite it all ablaze.

“Everyone here thinks the Sylvan tribes are a bunch of feral beasts that can’t control themselves! My people are ruthless and unrelenting because it’s the only way to survive in Vulture Woods. We’ve simply learned to adapt to our environment. We have rules and structure just like Hollow Shade, but that doesn’t matter to any of you.”

Stryg looked down, “I can hear the other magi whisper amongst themselves when I walk by. What they think of my kind and me. All of them believe they’re better than me just because I’m a Sylvan goblin.”

“Stryg, I didn-”

Stryg shot to his feet, “Well, they’re not! None of you are! Hollow Shade sacrifices those who go against them to a bunch of monsters at the wall and enslave the rest. Undead sentinels hunt down Hollow Shade’s own people at night, simply because they forgot their damn nameplates at home. And you call us the savages!?”

Loh watched quietly as Stryg heaved.

She waited until he caught his breath, “Stryg… I’m sorry, I was not careful with my words. I admit I always saw some of your mannerisms as strange, but I never thought you might see us the same. Heh, maybe even worse.”

Stryg stared at her, the anger slowly deflating from his face. He plopped down on his chair and refused to meet her gaze.

“None of it matters, not anymore,” he sighed.

“It does matter. What you think matters to me. I care about us,” Loh raised her silver bracelet and pointed at Stryg’s matching set. “This represents a lifetime bond. You’re my apprentice… And how you feel concerns me as a mage and as a friend.”

Stryg met her eyes with a spent gaze, “Lunis is gone, her people forgotten, and I’m one of the few goblins in this entire city who knows. So, what am I supposed to do? Can someone as weak as me do anything?”

“Stryg, what’s Lunis?” Loh scrunched her nose.

“...Nothing, never mind,” he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Stryg…”

“You wanted to know about Sigte, right? I don’t really know much of his past. Sigte wasn’t originally from the Blood Fang tribe. He was from another tribe, they were nameless.”

“Nameless? What do you mean?”

“When one of the Sylvan tribes is found guilty of the vilest of crimes, they are condemned by the Lunar Elect and are stripped of their tribe name.”

“Are the Lunar Elect powerful?”

“They are the council that oversees all the Sylvan people. Their word is the law.”

“I see, that doesn’t sound promising for the nameless. What crime did Sigte’s tribe commit exactly?”

Stryg traced his finger over the silver links in his bracelet, “I don’t know. I was pretty young when the whole thing happened and the tribes don’t like to talk about those kinds of things. All I do know is that they were convicted of committing a crime against the goddess Lunae.”

“Oh, that couldn’t have ended well,” she winced.

“By order of the Lunar Elect, various tribes attacked the nameless. The Blood Fang tribe was one of the attackers. A few of the nameless’ people who were deemed innocent and skillful were spared and accepted into the other tribes. Sigte was a strong hunter, so he was given a new life in Blood Fang.”

“Lucky him,” Loh smiled.

“I guess. But, the stigma of being from a nameless tribe never left him. The other tribe members always kept their distance. Maybe that’s why he took me on as his apprentice? I was an outcast who was eager to learn from anyone. Even if I was a bad omen from Lunae, his tribe had gone against Lunae, so Sigte probably didn’t mind teaching someone like me.”

“Or maybe he saw you were just a lonely kid who needed somebody to look after them, like every child deserves,” Loh reached out and grabbed his hand.

“I doubt it,” he muttered.

She let him go and began to pace around the room, “So, why did Sigte know about the arcane language? Was there a powerful mage in the nameless tribe who taught him perhaps?”

“No idea.”

“Were there any other nameless people who joined your old tribe?”

“There was one, she got lucky. First Mother chose her to serve as the newest Mother. It is the most prestigious of all roles in the tribe, so she accepted the role gladly. She gave up her old name and became Sixth Mother, the youngest of the Mothers.”

“Do you think she might know about the arcane language?”

“Dunno, but that woman hated me and always made sure to make my life more difficult wherever she could. I doubt she’d tell us anything. Especially since the Blood Fang tribe would probably kill me on sight.”

Loh clapped her hands together, “Let’s not think about this for now. Why don’t we keep practicing your arcane writing?”

“Okay,” he nodded.

“Feel free to write what you want, just don’t push yourself too hard. I want to see what you’re capable of.”

“Alright,” Stryg stood up.

He let the grey mana flow into his fingertip and began writing the sigils in the air. The mana followed his design with ease, his hand moved in quick strokes, covering the air in front of him with grey sigils. Every stroke grew more difficult to write, the pressure of the mana building up, but he knew what he wanted to write and he kept at it until he was finished.

After about thirty seconds he was finished, he took a step back and admired his work, “Done.”

“Wow… It’s so clean and precise,” Loh looked all around the sigils, checking their design from every angle. “It’s like you were taught to write specifically in the air.”

“Maybe I was,” Stryg scratched his cheek.

“Huh?”

“Whenever I used to write in the dirt I couldn’t get the words just right, the pressure and the angle were always off. It was even worse when it came to paper and ink. But, when I write in the air, everything I learned, each position for a stroke, the pressure, the angle, the volume, I don’t know, it all comes together somehow.”

“Interesting. Wait. Stryg, the third sigil on the second row, I don’t recognize it. Or that one,” Loh pointed. “Or this one here. Wait, is this a complete sentence?”

“Yes? You told me to write whatever I wanted, so I did,” he shrugged.

“You’re telling me you can write complete sentences in the arcane language?”

“In the Arcana form, yes.”

“I can’t believe it. Hollow Shade’s lexicons are limited, we can only form small phrases at best. It limits the complexity of our curse, enchanting, and ward spell-forms. But, you,” she looked at him. “You wrote a complete sentence. Stryg, how much of the arcane lan- the second form, Arcana, do you know?”

“I’ve learned a bunch of new Common words since coming to Hollow Shade, I don’t know any of those in Arcana.”

“And what about the rest of the words? How many of those do you know in Arcana?”

“All of them, I guess? Well, except for names, there’s no second form for those.”

Loh felt the strength leave her legs, she grabbed onto her desk for support, “Holy shit.”

“What is it?” He furrowed his brow.

She gave him a strange look, “Your knowledge just became one of the most valuable assets in the entire city, maybe the Realm. You have no idea what magi could be capable of if they had full access to the arcane language.”

“That’s pretty cool,” he grinned lopsidedly.

“No, it really isn’t. It’s very dangerous. You may as well be sitting defenseless on top of a mountain of gold in the middle of Dusk Valley. People would come after you if they knew about your complete arcane lexicon.”

“Oh... I’m fucked,” his eyelids drooped.

She grabbed his shoulders, “Not if we keep it secret. This stays between you and me, Stryg. So long as we don’t reveal the true extent of your knowledge we’ll be fine. I think.”

“Okay, I can do that. Secret. Got it. I won’t tell anyone,” Stryg nodded repeatedly.

“Good, and that includes Feli. I know you trust her, but there’s no reason she needs to know. We can’t risk this getting out.”

“I understand.”

“Good,” she nodded. “On that note, it wouldn’t be bad to show off some of your skills.”

“Huh?”

~~~

“Today we will be practicing red magic’s ward spell-form. For your sake, I hope you have at least an inkling of talent for ward magic.” Elzri sat on a chair in a stone courtyard.

“Stryg is more talented than you give him credit for,” Loh patted his back.

Stryg nodded silently.

Loh had convinced Elzri to give Stryg another lesson the next day, but this time in ward magic. Elzri had reluctantly agreed. He had led the trio to his private courtyard on the academy grounds.

“Loh tells me she has taught you about arcane sigils when it comes to curse spells, yes?” Elzri asked.

“Yes,” Stryg said.

“Good, ward spells are similar. They too require writing sigils in the air and creating a specific effect. The difference being that ward spells form shields around the caster. The more complex the ward the more powerful the shield, the more mana efficient, and more adaptive. But complexity also comes with a cost, it creates a greater mental strain to maintain the shield.”

“What do you mean adaptive?” Stryg tilted his head.

“Wards are very specific. The more specific you can make them the stronger they are. On the other hand, certain attacks may get through if your sigils did not cover them in the ward spell. Simply put, the more complex your sigils the more powerful your ward. The difficulty for a red mage is the amount of time it takes to write a ward mid-battle. A single mistake in a sigil will cause the entire ward to collapse. Not to mention every time a ward stops an attack it drains mana. So, the more kinds of attacks the ward blocks the quicker your mana reserves will be drained.”

“Complex wards are difficult, got it,” Stryg nodded.

Elzri paused and stared at him with a steely gaze, “...Yes, something like that.”

“Well, enough talking, why don’t you start already?” Loh smiled wide.

Elzri narrowed his eyes and glanced between the two, “...Very well. Since your master is so eager to interfere in my teaching method, why don’t we just begin? Start with a fire ward. Or did your master not teach you the arcane word for fire?”

Stryg didn’t bother to respond and instead began to write. Red mana came easier to him today than it did yesterday. For once he felt very confident in his magical abilities and his mana reacted to the feeling.

Stryg drew the sigil for fire but continued beyond it. His focus condensed into one singular task. Today, he would not fail.

Stryg drew a complex pattern of words composed into a defense of flame, light, and heat. He wrote several auxiliary words to enhance the overall strength of the ward. He included ways of heat dispersion around the shield and light diffusion, he even wrote a few words regarding wind in order to block the smoke and fumes.

Stryg didn’t know how long he was writing, only that his arms burned with the after-effects of large influxes of mana. Sweat dripped off his brow, he was out of breath, but he felt alive. A bright red shield covered in floating sigils formed around him.

Stryg glanced at Elzri, “Is that good enough?”

The archmage’s eyes were round, his forehead creased, mouth slightly hanging open. “...That will do, yes, that will do.”

Stryg smiled in relief.

Elzri looked him over, “It seems you are finally living up to your potential as a prodigy. I can work with this. You have hope yet, Stryg of Ebon Hollow.”

Loh stood behind Elzri, the largest smile Stryg had ever seen stretched across her face.