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Chapter Ten: A Summoner's Fear
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Kilvic drummed his fingers against the desk beside him. Standing in line was a new experience for him. His classmates had long discarded the concept of orderliness and were pushing back and forth, though a select few remained seated. Suffice it to say, he stood outside of the line but never took his eyes off his position behind Moss.
He’d been in the academy for two weeks now and understood the basic routines surrounding its daily activities. Today was his fifth summoning lecture, and while Instructor Quiv had taught them various other essentials, and stalled long enough, he was finally allowing them summon their first demons. The demons they would summon today, he had told them, would be the demon they would use for at least the rest of their first year.
In the times he’d taught them, Quiv had made certain they all understood that nilhium was the only way to summon a demon from the eartherrealm. It was the most valuable crystal a mage could ever get their
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When Kilvic took his seat, Moss and Stratin made failed attempts at concealing their emotions towards the debacle. But Ariadne made no such attempt, the compassion was written all over her face when she turned to him.“I’m so sorry,” she said, and meant it.The apology brought him confusion.“Why?” he asked her, curious. There were only a few reasons a person would feel the need to apologize in such a manner, and by the life of him he had no idea what her crime could’ve been. “What have you done?” he added.Ariadne drew a blank, her confusion usurping her compassion.“Aren’t you…” She trailed off when she saw the other boys shaking their heads. “Am I missing something?”“Look at him,” Stratin told her.“Ok,” she complied, skeptical. After a while, she turned back to him, confused. “What am I looking for?”&ld
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Instructor Irvina taught them of reiaology and always had a way of making the class interesting simply with the sound of her voice. It was something the poets from the books Kilvic had read growing up would have describe as a subtle caress of an unexpected drop of rain under a blazing sun on a hot summer afternoon. A soothing reprise from the pain of everything else. Students were known to have said listening to her made them forget the ache in the muscles from the evenings of sword practice under Grunald and the morning’s unarmed training under instructor Haru.Today, she taught on the second stage of reia evolution. A stage referred to as the condensation stage.The first stage was the willed stage. It was the point when reia began reacting to a mage’s will. Most mages manifest reia by their eight year of age, at that point all it did was learn to react to the reia in everything else and, in time, to the emotions of the mage. However, an externally reacti
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When Kilvic arrived at his seat it was a while longer before the madness subsided. Many people came to their table almost immediately, offering their appreciation. Some spoke of a gratitude for being given the chance to hear something beautiful. A few people offered to buy him drinks and Moss advised that refusing such offers would be disrespectful. Kilvic had a feeling the boy just wanted more to drink. Still, he accepted the offers, receiving only drinks with the littlest of alcohol. And while the number of those who stopped by dwindled, and the tavern ran out of serving girls who hadn’t given him a note or two surprisingly bearing contents ranging from outright invitations to the free comfort between their legs to addresses and professions of sudden love, he wondered at how much longer they would stay.Kilvic and his companions stayed one more hour after his performance, during which he drank a cup of elderberry while Tudi watched him with open hunger and Ariadne wat
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The air was cool with the teasing whisper of a promising winter when Kilvic and his companions stepped out of the tavern. The sun was still high in the sky, however, it was no confusion that they had lost some time. Kilvic tightened his hold on the bottle in his hand and turned down the tavern steps onto the sidewalk, and his friends followed.“I didn’t know you knew how to play the harp,” Moss said as they walked down to the nearest junction.Kilvic didn’t take his eyes of the road. “I know.”“Where did you learn?” Tudi asked.“Back home.”“It was a beautiful piece,” she said. “What’s the name?”“Clara,” Ariadne answered.Somehow Tudi had ended up beside Kilvic and Ariadne walked on the other side of the girl. Until now, she’d been busy ticking of a mental list on her fingers and frowning.“Just Clara?” Tudi
The Demon King Chronicles; Demon-Named Chapter Eighteen: Discordance
“…You were the one that chose him, remember?” one of the men with a scattered mop of hair on his head was saying. “We watched them, paid attention, and when you saw him play at the bar you chose him. ‘a boy that plays like that wouldn’t have much love for combat’ you said. Remember?” The man was frantic but the one that had led Kilvic’s quarry into the alley calmed him, then turned to the man in the jacket. “Were you followed?” “No,” Kilvic’s quarry answered. “How can you be sure?” “Because I used that running away technique you showed me,” he answered. “The one where I use the alleys and cross the roads. I don’t know why I had to do all that, I could’ve been here long sooner.” Then he turned to one of the other men, satisfied with his own answer, and asked, “What happened to your face?” The man questioned put a hand to his face then turned and drove a vicious kick into the side of one of the students lying on the floor, inciting a pained groa
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“Same as last year.” Lacra made a grunting sound like gravels scraping. She coughed, turned her head to the side, and spat out a blob of blood stained spittle. “Same as last fucking year.”She was seated on the sand. Her tattered clothes did not leave much for imaginations, but the necessary parts were covered and she cast the perfect look of a warrior from battle. Gyra and Kilvic stood in front of her. Around them the others were beginning to rise groggily. It had been roughly fifteen minutes since Lacra had surrendered and Kilvic noted her injuries were gone, completely healed. He turned his head to Fyodan where he stood, the first to come to his feet. Behind him the crack in the arena wall was also gone. Healing or reconstructive, he wondered. They did not have an arena like this in castle Grey. They did not have an arena that fixed itself… or those within it.Its effects were slow, but each of the students were comin
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