“No, no, NO, NO, NO!” Alfonse yelled at me. “You must be faster! Your enemies are coming at you, and you are unarmed! You need for be able to form a blade or shield in less than a second! They aren’t going to sit idly by as you dilly dally!”

“I’m trying!” I growled out between panting breaths. We had been working on forming blades for two hours by this point, and the earlier day hadn’t done me any favors.

Alfonse stared at me for a second, before waving away my concerns. “Very well, we shall take a break then. You are almost at your limit for lost blood. Drink a vial over there, then return. We shall work on something else. Even if your body is tired, surely you have a bit left to work with your mind, yes?” I ignored his little barbed comment and headed over for a drink. A much needed drink. Ever since I had disrupted his plans, Alfonse was far more hostile towards me, though he kept it just within the line of the geas to prevent him from being punished. That was fine with me, as Volgan was one of those who thought that people learned better and faster under adverse conditions so I wasn’t completely unused to it. Once I sat back down, Alfonse asked, “What do you know of wards?”

“Wards? Well, every town needs them. They are a linked array of specific runes, and set at exact angles to be effective.”

He nodded, “A basic understanding, but we can build from there I suppose. What you think of as wards are truly Greater Wardings, and are far more complex than you realize. It’s not just the arrangement and distances and angles between them either. Those that protect a city also require specific depths of certain strokes, and as the net is built it must be set up in an exact order. But before you can get to the epitome of workmanship that a Greater Warding requires, one must start with the basics. And the basics start with personal wards.” I nodded along, but didn’t want to interrupt him as he seemed to be in a groove. “Personal wards depend on the magic power of the one casting them of course, and effect a much smaller area. A powerful mage might be able to ward a campsite large enough to fit a wagon with simple, personal wards. You will likely be able to ward an area slightly larger than your bed.”

I couldn’t help myself at this point, and interrupted, “There’s an awfully large gap there. Is there a way to increase the size of a personal ward?”

Alfonse sighed, taking a moment to collect himself. “If you would allow me to finish? Yes, there are ways. But first, you must work on drawing this sigil, as each sigil affects the wards capabilities. This is the absolute basic sigil, the Warning Bell. If the line of the ward is crossed by a being larger than a medium sized dog, the caster is woken up.” While he explained, he slowly drew the sigil out. It started out with a curved line on the left side that dropped down to a point, and the next part was difficult. A slightly upcurved horizontal line, but midway through you added a circle onto it before dropping down to a point exactly horizontal with the first point. Another horizontal curved line, followed by the mirror of the first stroke completed what was obviously a bell with a clapper. However, the sigil kept the final line going, making a complete circle around the entire thing. In the end, it was a bell attached to the top of a circle.

“Now, before you practice this, know a few things. All personal sigils are one continuous line. You must be exact as well, as hesitating on these pointed corners will cause the ink or blood to pool, ruining the sigil. You will use a quill and practice with ink to start, until I feel your work is passable. Then we will switch to blood. You may still use a quill or a stylus if you wish, and I highly recommend it. Eventually you will get to the point where your blood control can draw it for you. That is true mastery of the sigil.”

I asked, “How will I know if it worked?”

“With the ink? You won’t. You will need to trust me. With the blood practice, a red barrier will form around you and flash. Don’t worry, this effect is only visible to you. Now, start practicing, and I will tell you how to strengthen runes.” Nodding along, I went ahead and started, trying to control the angle of the quill tip to give the same sort of calligraphic effect to the lines that Alphonse had. I didn’t notice it, but he was nodding his head in approval of my efforts before he started again.

“Now, there are three ways to strengthen wards. The easiest is to anchor a portion of it to a building. While the original ward will be circular, centered around the sigil, if it encounters the wall of a building it will follow the wall for a while. This does two things. First, the ward weakens along that wall, as it is assumed anything that can break the wall will wake you up. This is only the case with alarm style wards, as a personal shield ward will strengthen the wall behind you. Second, the ward will be able to expand slightly in every other direction since it now has extra energy.”

“The second way of increasing a ward’s strength is to use a stronger medium. Our personal wards are going to be written in blood, and will last but a day. Carved into wood, you can increase the size of the ward and it will likely last about a month. However, you start to run into the issue of depth. The thicker lines in the ink that you noticed will be deeper cuts into whatever material you are working with.”

“The final way is to link ward sigils. Even if you don’t know many sigils, you can link several of the same to boost the effect. The linked array needs at least two sigils, and has many different requirements. Stop! You hesitated too long on the bottom middle point, see how it is more of a bulb than a point? Start over.”

“Yes sir.” I said glumly, looking at the mistake I had made. It was slightly frustrating, as the line was barely bulged. “Can you tell me how you would link two of the alarm wards?”

“I will, but I want you paying more attention to what you are doing than what I am saying. Linked arrays are a lot more hassle than what you think. And I am not going into the theory behind it, at least not yet. You need to prove you can make the initial sigil before making the advanced, clear?” I nodded, not looking up from my work as I was close to the same point that I had messed up on last attempt. “Good. For the dual alarm array, you first make the bell sigil, but it is angled to the left. At the top of the bell, instead of making a circle, you will reverse direction and make the bottom third of a circle leading to another bell angled to the right. This bell’s clapper will also be on the right half of the bottom of the bell, making them mirror images. Complete the second bell, and make another third of a circle. Turn this into the outer circle that encloses both bells, before coming back to close with the final third of a circle leading back to the initial bell. The final product will look like a small circle touching the top of a much larger circle, and swinging back and forth on this smaller circle is one bell.”

I looked at the new sigil he had drawn, and my heart sunk at the complexity. His was a thing of beauty, and I could almost hear the bell ringing the alarm as it moved back and forth. That he had drawn it in one continuous line made it all the more glorious. “Don’t compare yourself to someone with centuries of practice. I want you to at least move on to drawing in blood by the end of tonight. We might have a lot of time to work on this, but that’s no excuse to not push yourself.” He ordered, and I nodded.

“Speaking of time,” I said, stopping after yet another failure, “We might not have as long as you think. Something big is happening, so they are sending us to Sekigahara after six months of training.”

“WHAT!?” Alphonse thundered, his chair rocketing backward and smashing into the wall he stood up so fast. “What do you mean, you are going to Sekigahara after six months? There’s no good reason. . . unless. . .” His tirade trailed off into silence as he sat there staring off into space. After nearly ten long seconds his head snapped back to my direction and he snarled, “Well? What are you waiting for? You just admitted we don’t have the time we need and yet here you are slacking off! Change in plans boy! You don’t leave tonight until you can make a proper sigil! I hope you have a well of untapped talent, because you’re going to need it if I’m going to cram all my knowledge into your head in six measly months!”

With renewed vigor and fear, I threw myself back into practice. Though I kept up a rather impressive string of failures, I was slowly but surely working my way towards perfection. Rather than let me waste time with a failed attempt, Alphonse loomed over my shoulder, stopping me when a line would have caused a failure. As I sighed in frustration, he asked, “What’s the matter boy? Am I making you uncomfortable?” At my nod, he continued, “Good! Do you think every time you are going to be crafting a ward that everything is going to be fine and dandy? You need to be able to make it on the fly and under pressure. Consider this the advanced course.” He chuckled darkly as I kept going. Luckily for me I didn’t have to look at the thunderous expression on his face.

“It’s about time. This is good enough that I think you can try with the blood.” Alphonse said after two tortuous hours.

“Do you mind if I take a small break first? My hand is cramping a bit.” I asked, rubbing my wrist.

“That’s fine. Take ten minutes, I need to get my enchanted well anyway. It will keep the blood fresh while you practice. You can go ahead and keep them for now, as I expect you to always sleep under the alarm ward.” With a swirl of cloth, he was gone and I let my entire body start to relax. It was getting close to midnight, and I really needed to be going soon. Hopefully I would be able to use the stylus that Alphonse was loaning me as adeptly as I was getting with a quill.

“Wake up!” Alphonse yelled as he slammed a hand on the table next to my head.

“Huh? Ha? Whazza?” I shouted, immediately jerking upright and shooting a small stream of blood from my wrist, the very tip of which managed to hold a bit of a blade shape. While Alphonse could have easily dodged it, he instead let it slap into his palm.

“Hmmm, Decent reaction speed. You didn’t manage to pierce my skin, but it is likely that you would have given some unsuspecting human a light wound. Not a lot of improvement, but there is a bit there.” He said, sliding the inkwell over to me. “Fill up around a quarter of this. Anything more will just waste the blood.”

“Ok.” I said, trying to get my brain in order. While I was filling the inkwell, Alphonse sat across from me and stared at me.

Eventually he spoke again, “I’ve been pondering your news. There is no way Volgan would send a green legion like yours to the front lines, let alone a bloody ground like Sekigahara without good reason. Most likely is that someone is going to attempt an ascension to Sanguine Emperor soon. That means two things. First, there will be two Dukes there vying for supremacy. Part of that will also require bleeding the power from the other’s forces, charging the grounds. Any humans thrown into the mix will be gladly sacrificed as well, so the danger is going to be through the roof. In order to prepare you, I’m going to have to dip into a special wine my old master created. You may only drink one glass per week, but it will help you boost your magical skills and let you learn faster. Are you interested?”

I stopped what I was doing and stared back at him for a moment. Something was off here. “Why? Why would you waste what is likely a priceless resource on me?”

“It’s because of this damn geas.” He snarled, losing his composure for a moment, before he seemed to deflate. “That, and I’m tired. I’ve been bound to this city for far too long, and I hope one day you will recognize the lengths I went through to help keep you alive and that you will free me from this curse.”

“Alright.” I nodded after a bit. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a sigil to practice. If it works, what do we do then?”

He nodded, “Good. Get it to work, and we will mark the distance and make plans. I will also be crossing it, so you know what it feels like when this particular ward is broken.” I nodded, glad he thought to do that as it had never crossed my mind.

Nearly an hour later, and much swearing, I finally noticed something different. As I completed the outer circle, a wavy and wobbly film of red rose up from around me and flashed as it came together in a dome. “Did I? I DID IT!” I shouted, nearly jumping out of my seat but realizing that I might destroy the ward if I did so.

“Did you? Hmm, color me impressed Brandon. Most take nearly a week to get their first success. Now, how wide is the circle?”

“Um, four feet? That doesn’t seem right, it’s not even wide enough to fit my bed!” I cried, dismayed.

“Easy. The first success is almost always a partial success, and you should have about double the area after a bit more practice. Now, pay attention.” He ordered, shoving his hand through the ward. As soon as it passed through, I felt a strange jolt. It was as if my body had slammed into a hay bale while getting that static shock from a friend in winter. It was a unique enough feeling that I would never forget it.

“I can see from your face you felt it. Excellent. Do it three more times, and we will be done for the night. See if you can get a bigger circle. I will break each one just to give you a feeling of what happens.”

I nodded and created a new ward, noticing that the one I had just created had already turned to dust and flaked away. My new wards all did the same thing, and the best one managed to reach a six-foot radius.

“Here.” Alphonse said, sliding a board across the table to me. “Draw a sigil on this and leave it under your mattress near where your feet are. That should give it enough room to merge with the wall and provide you with a decent sized warded area. Tomorrow we will work on controlling the size of the ward.”

“Thanks.” I muttered, exhaustion and elation warring with my body. I grabbed the board and the inkwell, and headed back towards the barracks. A quick flash of my badge got me past the guards, and my exhaustion took a toll on my warding. The resultant ward barely had a three-foot radius, but I didn’t care. I slid the board in the middle of the bed, close enough to the walls on either side of me that my entire bed was covered by the ward. It only took seconds for my exhausted body to drop into slumber.