Chapter 85 - The Rituals of Power (Patreon)

“I’m gonna need you all to line up here.” Professor Cedric Cold said at the start of Felix’s Combat Class. He hurried into line, beating most of the other students.

The fact that the usual ‘playground’ and casting devices were gone worried him slightly. His skills with a wand had improved by leaps and bounds as he mastered the 44 fundamental motions, but his magic was still slow and sluggish. Given all the target dummies, Felix had a bad feeling about how today was going to go. 

“K. It’s time for you all to learn the flop stop.” Professor Cold said. “Neat little spell. Weaker than a stunner, about as effective in some cases. Stops the target from being able to move, but they’re still awake and everything. Not rigid at all, makes the body completely relaxed. Know a senior or three who’ll use it on themselves to relax. Bad idea that, maybe shouldn’t have suggested that at all. Well, it’s magic, you’re kids, you’d figure it out yourselves either way. Right then, can I get a volunteer?”

Felix put his hand up, along with a number of other students. Professor Cold looked at him before calling on Sora. The girl skipped forward with a mischievous grin. 

“Right then. The invocation’s a little long, and there’s 6 wand movements. 5-19-22-35-15-40. Caoutchoucae!” 

The professor waved his short sword in the described motions. Felix was fairly certain that the professor’s focus aligned well with the spell, and he could point-cast instead, but was simply demonstrating the motions to teach them.

A bolt of violet spellfire left the focus, speeding across to Sora. The bluette threw herself to the ground, tumbled, rolled, and sprang back up to her feet, dodging the shot entirely.

“Now see here, that ain’t no way to demonstrate the spell!” Professor Cold said, then rapidly and silently sent six spells towards Sora in under a second. To her credit, she gamely tried to throw herself to the side, out of the spread of shots, but one of them got her square in the chest. She continued her fall, flopping onto the ground and bonelessly bouncing and rolling. Professor Cedric shrugged, grabbed the flask at his waist, and had a long, long pull of his drink before putting it back with a sigh, patted his enormous belly, and continued lecturing.

A few of the students shifted around and gossiped with each other, but Felix was worried about his friend. Sora wasn’t moving. One eyelid was half-open, and her eyes drifted around unfocused, clearly out of control.

“Well. Suppose that’s also a good demonstration. See how she got hit while moving, and kept moving? In rare cases, that can be a bit of a problem. See, if it’s a friendly-like duel, suddenly losing control when you’re hit means you can have far worse injuries than if you’re just standin’ there. That bein’ said, you don’t want to just stand there and get hit. Mmmm. Something for you all to think about.”

He had a point, but Felix thought it was a fairly minor one. First, for virtually every student here, the wards would protect them. Felix wasn’t in that position, but he wasn’t exactly dueling people for fun. There were more important things, like catching up on his studies and making money. Dueling was for people like Erik who had enough time and money to afford recreational sports.

Thinking about it, Erik never seemed to have free time, his schedule was almost as packed as Felix’s was. 

Felix’s second thought was to the rest of his life, and nah, he’d be dodging. He didn’t see himself getting into fights, and if a fight came to him - which, given his luck so far, it inevitably would - then it was a fight, and he’d be using every dirty trick and nasty spell he had, and he assumed his opponents would be doing the same. Professor Cold’s wisdom and rules from the start of the year held firm, as did dueling logic. One spell was enough. If Felix got tagged by a spell, he’d be lucky if it was the floppy spell and he broke an arm on the way down, instead of the horrific torture curse of intestinal strangulation, or whatever over the top nonsense wixen had invented.

“Right then. Line up, errr, I already had you all do that. Take out your wands, aim at your target, and start practicing.” Professor Cold said.

Felix lined up, and perfectly executed the six wand movements, carefully pronouncing the spell along dozens of other students.

“Caoutchoucae!”

His magic responded slowly, and nothing happened, unlike the dozens of spells his classmates managed to shoot off. Their aim was bad enough that Felix was more worried standing off to the side than he would be if he was standing in the firing range, but that wasn’t his biggest concern.

He sighed. Another spell he was going to need to practice until he could finally get it.

==========

“I call this meeting of Morsin’s Dastardly Coven to o-order.” Sora almost got the whole sentence out without snickering, and immediately broke down into full out laughter.

“Wow, Broombrain.” Erik said as he sat down. “A three syllable word? I didn’t know you had it in you!”

Sora circled around the table just to kick Erik in the shin, then ran back off with a giggle.

“Did you sell Sora candy?” Vivian demanded of Felix. “Because she’s bad enough without extra sugar.” 

“I don’t kiss and tell.” Felix said primly. 

For some reason, Alex and Vivian traded glances, then burst into peals of laughter. Sora sat down lazily in her chair and grinned.

“Yeah, but I do!” She said. 

“What- oh.” Felix banged his head on the table, partly out of embarrassment, entirely to hide his blush. Right. He had kissed a girl at the table. Two of the girls. The experience and memory was unforgettable. He just hadn’t linked the idiom to the people and situation. 

He picked his head up, and swore he saw a fleeting smile on Hazel’s face. The girl was so quiet, so withdrawn, it was entirely possible to forget she was here at times. Hmmm, hmmm… ah! Felix had a great idea.

“Reeses?” He asked, grabbing a bar from his bag. He’d started bringing them with him, and word was starting to get around. With only the weekend to spread.

Truly, nothing was faster at Camelot than gossip.

Erik cleared his throat.

“As much fun as it is, maybe we should get studying? Sora, you’ve gotta pull your language grades up, and Felix, you probably want to work on the new Combat Class spell, yeah?”

“Awww, come on bossman, we’ve got plenty of time! We just got back! Nothing’s due until Thursday at the earliest!” Sora cajoled. 

“We have formed a coven. We should discuss the rituals of power we will do together.” Alexandria whispered, pounding the table with her fist for emphasis. 

Vivian groaned, and Hazel looked uncomfortable.

“Do we have to jump into this right now?” The blonde asked.

“If not now, when?” Alexandria hissed. “These are the best years of our lives to perform the rituals. They’ll inform everything we do, and if we stall, delay, and otherwise skip out on it, we could miss important celestial events! Core growth! Time and energy we have, now, as students, as opposed to after we graduate and have responsibilities. We do it now.” She banged the table for emphasis.

Sora stage whispered.

“Do you think she’ll settle for seven sets of seven, or are we going for the full thirteen sets of thirteen?” She asked.

Vivian groaned and theatrically threw her head back, covering her eyes with her hands.

“Alexandria, love, if you try to make us do a mythical set thirteen of thirteen, I will be quite cross with you.”

“I’ll share the details of my next date.” Alex whispered back.

“Sold.” Vivian said, immediately straightening up in her chair and staring at Erik the way a hawk would look at a mouse. 

Erik choked back a laugh, but Sora, Felix, and Hazel had no such compunctions.

“Forgive me if this is presumptuous, but I’m hoping we can look through the Morsin library for inspiration.” Alexandria whispered. “I’ve already looked through the school library, but the best they had available was a set of three by seven.”

“Well, the Morsin family does have a five by five ritual available to any scions of the family.” Erik said. “But there’s a lock on the bigger rituals, and a magically enforced rule. If we want to browse the more potent rituals, we need to first return a greater set to the library.”

“Whyyyy.” Sora whined. “That seems so pointless. Can’t your dad just walk through the wards and grab ‘em for us?”

“My father. Duke Morsin. You want to ask him to-”

Sora waved the rest of the explanation off. 

“Okay, okay, yeah, I got it, dumb question. He’d gruffly tell us to do it ourselves, and look at us all super disappointed and shit.”

“If he was in a good mood.” Erik said.

“Right, that, otherwise we’re running for our lives.” Sora said.

“I’m not sure how literal you’re being, but it’s making me nervous.” Vivian said.

“Duke Morsin is a strong leader who knows better than to execute subordinates or subjects.” Erik formally replied.

“Yeah, but if you’re not one of those, look out!” Sora stage whispered. Again. Badly. 

“Could we just buy a seven by seven ritual, and trade that in?” Vivian asked. 

“That seems smart.” Hazel piped in, not looking up from her homework. Since she wasn’t in the coven, she wouldn’t be able to participate in the coven ritual. 

“Nobody sells rituals like that.” Erik said.

“They’re rarely auctioned off, but nobody’s going to allow a Morsin in.” Alexandria whispered.

“Are the five of you just screwed then?” Hazel asked, piping up again from her homework. “I don’t think a year of Rituals will be enough for you to make your own.”

With five sets of eyes on her, she picked up her book and slowly raised it until she was hiding behind it again.

“We can go to the library.” Alexandria whispered. “Up to the higher floors. Find a ritual hidden among the books, and bring it back down.”

“The library.” Felix deadpanned. “The one with the bones from the expedition saying ‘feed me more, I’m hungry’ by an ancient demon hiding up there? Those upper levels? That’s where you want to go?”

Alexandria opened her mouth, and Felix poked Sora with his foot.

“We’ll feed Sora to the demon and escape with our riches, got it. Cheap price to pay.” He said.

“HEY!” Sora protested.

“No, no, I get what you’re saying. Frankly, it’s a bargain, solve two problems at once.” Erik joked.

Sora got up and walked around the table. Erik held his hands up defensively, with a grin. She still slugged him in the arm.

“Let’s go tonight.” Alexandria whispered, to shouts of protest by everyone else.

“Whoa, whoa whoa!” Erik yelled, finally calming everyone down. His words were punctuated by the slamming of the door as Hazel fled the argument. “Alexandria, I understand your desire, but that is rushing it! We will die. We’ve got what, ten spells between the five of us?”

“Twelve.” She corrected with a hiss.

“Twelve. Our best spell for a fight we just learned today. Heck no. We’re doing this next year, at the earliest.”

Alexandria crossed her arms and glared at Erik. 

“Come on, Alex, you know he’s right.”

She sniffed.

“Do we at least have an idea of which rituals are available?” She asked.

“We were literally just there.” Felix complained. “You could’ve taken a look anytime you wanted.”

He met Alex’s poisonous glare with his own. 

“Fine.” She grumped. “You’re right.”

Alexandria sighed dramatically, only to flinch as Vivian jabbed her wand into Alex’s side.

“Oi! Cheer up! New spells!” She said.

Alex grinned.

“New spells indeed.”