The Archmage: Chapter Twenty (Patreon)

Before anything though, I headed down to Seth’s office. 

“Hello Evan,” he said, smiling. “Hard to believe how fast the time has flown. It feels like only yesterday I was having to drag you into the ring just to get you to fight, and look at you now.” 

“Seth,” I greeted. “Good to see you. Even if I never took any further combat courses, I did appreciate what I learned, and tried to put it to good use. Are you still teaching it?” 

“Indeed,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “But unless I’m very much off my mark, you’re not here just to chat.” 

“Am I that predictable?” I asked. 

“Well, you’re certainly utilitarian. Enough so that there was a rumor going around for a while that you were a changeling or a dhampir,” Seth said, “but those aside… What did you need help with?” 

“Two things,” I said. “One is a minor ask, and one is a big one. I’ll start with the small ask – I’d like your expertise in setting up five summoning arrays at once. I’m experienced enough with enchantments to know how to do the spacing, but I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on summonings – I know enough to set one up if I’ve got the ritual already written out for me, nothing more.” 

“Simple enough,” Seth said. “I can help you with that. How about your other request?” 

“I need to summon Oberon,” I said. 

Seth stared at me for a long, long second. 

“I’m also going to ask Draven for his help,” I clarified. “Though I haven’t yet.” 

Seth’s stare only grew more intense at that, and I shifted uncomfortably. 

“What?” I finally asked. 

“I’ve summoned a faerie queen before,” he said. “Larissa, Queen of the Yetis. But Oberon…” 

He shook his head. 

“Lad, Oberon isn’t just a king of the fae.” 

“He’s not on Medb’s level, surely,” I protested. 

“No, he’s not one of the eight, but he’s the closest to that position of anyone but them and their heirs,” Seth said. “If he responds to your call, you’re going to need a good offering. I suppose you’re an enchanter, though, so that takes care of that, more than likely. But you’ll need something else to pay for his assistance.” 

“Wait, what?” I asked. “I assumed the offering was payment.” 

“No,” he said. “It’s not like the party, where you were invited. You’re knocking on his door, demanding he do business with you. You have to pay for that.” 

“I don’t when I summon Awel Meddal or the Silver Queen,” I protested. 

Seth hung his head in his hands, then looked up to me. 

“I don’t know what kind of trickery you’ve got that’s let you enthrall the Fae the way you have,” he said. “You’ve built working relationships with them, though. You haven’t with him.” 

“Hmm,” I said, nodding.” I suppose I can see that. Wait, do you have contacts in the Elemental Fields?” 

“Aye,” he said. 

“Can you get your hands on a lot of metal based materials?” I asked. “In particular, things related to iron.”

His head snapped up. 

“Don’t try and contain Oberon in a –” 

“No, no!” I said, holding my hands up. “Not like that. Not at all. I’m planning to use human spellforms to invert them and make an iron repelling artifact, then use that as a sacrifice. I’ve made a spell like that a few times now, I’m confident that if I get a handful of good components, I can tune it up to something really valuable.” 

In particular, I was thinking of three sets of three. The first three would be various spells to repel iron, with a directory spell to shift between them as was most efficient. The second would be a copy of Rowan’s spatial warping armor, since that would help, alongside some mortal force armor and an Elemental Lock spell to help block out any elemental magic that used iron, while the last would hold some abjuration spells in order to break up any mortal iron spellcasting. 

That might not be quite on the level of the sword, but if I had good components, I was confident that I’d be able to make it work. 

“I see,” he said. “I can get some, but there’s going to be a price – portals aren’t free, and nor is the manipulation and gathering of components.” 

“Sure,” I said. “Zheren has a whole market for it.” 

Seth just shook his head, and we spent a while hashing out the price, as well as a reasonable payment plan, then wrote it all down and had it legally processed. 

It surprised me somewhat that he wanted silver crowns for his work. Maybe I’d been working with the Fae for too long, and gotten used to only working in favors and items. 

Once that was done, we started setting up the summoning spells, and then got them all ready and charged up with ambient aura, before I grabbed some dinner with Osheen and turned in for bed. 

“Morning class,” I said the following morning, as I walked into the Introductory Witchcraft course. “I hope you’re ready to get started on gathering up some actual power today.” 

There was an excited buzz among the students at that, even the nobles. I glanced up. 

“For those of you who’ve read the syllabus, after language training comes familiars.” 

“What about those of us who already have familiars?” drawled a tall, skinny noble. 

“You’re welcome to leave, you’ve already aced this assignment,” I said. “In fact, if any of you already have a familiar, I’d advise you to not participate, though you’re welcome to watch. Taking too many familiars, boons, bonds, and other such things can interfere with mortal spellcraft. I’ve done it, and practically all of my spells have to involve Faerie magic now. I make it work, but it’s not perfect. I’d not advise many to take the path I did.” 

Almost all of the noble students got up and left, content to get a perfect grade and not have to put up with me. They thought they already knew everything this course would teach them – which in fairness, they may – but I suspected they’d be surprised. 

“Alright kids,” I said, clapping my hands softly. “It’s time to go on a field trip.”

I led them through the halls to where Seth and I had set up spaced out summoning arrays. 

It was a massive room, easily large enough to hold four or five sports fields together, and the floor was made of a chalky substance that was excellent to write on in chalk. I hadn’t even known we’d had the space, but apparently it existed for exactly this reason – to help novice Druids summon their first familiars, while a teacher could watch over them all. 

The druid courses didn’t provide the resources or spells for a familiar summoning like I had, but I wondered if that could be changed in the future. 

It might well be – their department would look bad if the introductory witchcraft course out performed them. 

Spread throughout the massive space were the five summoning arrays Seth and I had worked on. Further, I’d drawn dozens of aura inductors and capacitors to help make sure I kept them all filled while my students worked. 

“What’s this?” Donovan asked. 

I glanced over, surprised to see the noble student, then flicked my third eye open. Sure enough, he did already have a familiar – it seemed he was just observing, then. 

Interestingly, though, his familiar was notably different from the ones I’d seen George’s cronies with during his first year. Was Donovan on the outs with House Heenling? 

“This,” I said, spreading my arms out to indicate the massive hall. “Is an opportunity. How many of you weren’t able to get a familiar because the costs to run the ritual are high, and they often have restricted components, and the scrolls themselves are expensive? No shame – I had to deal with all those limiting factors myself.” 

Most of the students raised their hands, and I nodded.

“This is to help prevent that. None of the familiars here are anything crazy – I don’t have the knowledge, money, or power to give all of you a gargoyle or something like that. But you’re all witches. You don’t need a combat familiar. A utility familiar is far more useful, and that’s what these are.”

“Why do we need a familiar, professor?” Willow asked, and her voice was so soft that I could barely hear it over the shuffling of feet. 

“You don’t,” I said. “I won’t force anyone to take one. You’ll all pass, even if you don’t take any. But they offer a three distinct advantages. First, they’re one of the only safe and reasonable ways to expand an aura’s size. That means more runes lit per bit of aura, and is nice for glyphs, powering foci, and a dozen other things.”

There wasn’t much reaction to that, so I plowed on.

“Second, and even more importantly in my opinion, is gaining a secondary method of recharge. I got lucky in that mine refills at midnight, but plenty of mages aren’t so fortunate. My boyfriend and soon to be husband, for example, relies almost entirely on his familiar’s recharge.” 

That got a spark of excitement in their eyes, and I mentally slapped myself. How had I been so stupid? I’d been operating with the advantages of a familiar for so long that I’d forgotten that anyone might not know, but of course they wouldn’t. They were new mages.

“And third?” Donovan asked, even though I’d have bet every copper spear in my bank account that he already knew. 

“A familiar gift,” I said. “One of your fellow students got the ability to peer through veils of light, but there are a wide variety of options we’ll get into later. None of the rituals we have here today are for extremely powerful beings, but the gifts they offer can still be useful.” 

I pointed to the first spell. 

“This is the strongest familiar I have on offer. I made a deal with a Queen of the Breeze to get access to her sprites – small folk with wind magic who can turn invisible. They tend to offer gifts that help you move a bit quicker, need to breathe less air, jump higher, and gifts like that.” 

I pointed to the second, third, fourth, and fifth. 

“In order: earth, fire, water, and air elemental mites. Weaker than the sylphs, but that doesn’t mean they’re not useful. Being only about the size of a fingernail, they make for excellent scouts once you learn to see what they see.” 

“What sort of powers can we expect?” asked one bright eyed boy at the front. I thought his name was Jonah, but he’d not been very talkative in class. 

“Mites are weak, like I said. Don’t expect anything crazy. But that’s actually to your advantage here – they can give a wide variety of powers. While it’s easy to pin down a phoenix to three or four possible gifts, these can give practically any gift at random. There are ways that beings higher up on the food chain can manipulate what gift you get, but this isn’t likely to happen with the Sylphs or mites.” 

I held up a finger and put on a very stern and serious expression.

“Now, a warning before we begin. Familiars may only be a conjured aura vessel of something that lives in another plane, but the mind that inhabits them is that of a very real creature. Mistreat their vessel, and they can break off the contract, or even try to get revenge on you. I’ve never had to do that, but it’s happened before, to my knowledge.” 

I let my posture and face relax into a more contented, normal pose. 

“Now!” I said. “Who wants to go first?” 

Several students thrust their hands into the air.