Chapter 50 - Excessive Force

Several dull, blue stones tumble out across the wood. They’re jagged and uneven, they look less like stones and more like crystals.

I reach out to grab one but Clovis stops me. “Hold on Shikara, I think we need to be careful with them. We don’t know why they were inert.” 

Clovis explains the methodology as she arranges the pieces of slate in a neat row. “The principle is simple.”

She takes a piece of chalk and quickly sketches out a conduit circle and the concept rune for ‘light’ on the pieces of slate. She connects the conduit circle to four smaller circles each with the glyph of balance before finally finishing with a fifth circle at the precipice of the slate.

As she sketches she continues to explain the experiment. “If we use the exact same spell and just swap out the mana stones we can figure out what is making the corrupt stones inert. First we’ll use a regular mana stone as a control, then try to use a corrupted one and if that doesn’t work we can try to use them in conjunction with each other.”

The scholar is back in her element, and the change is remarkable. The weary, stressed healer is gone, replaced by a woman alight with intellectual curiosity.

She looks up at me, a flicker of her old, manic energy returning to her eyes. 

She pushes a small, uncorrupted mana stone towards me from her pocket. It’s a vibrant blue gem that seems to drink the light in the room.

She places her own mana stone directly into the fifth conduit circle on the first slate. “Okay, now I’ll finally show you how to fuel a written spell with a normal mana stone.”

“You place it here.” she explains, her finger tracing the chalk line connecting it to the main spell structure. “Then, you just need to channel a small amount of your own mana into it, waking up the stored energy within the stone.”

She looks at me, her expression cautiously encouraging. “Give it a go.”

I’m apprehensive but I do miss the feeling of casting magic so I take a deep breath and place my uninjured hand on the slate. 

I close my eyes and reach for the well of energy inside me, my quiet river of will. I picture a tiny stream of it flowing from my fingertips, into the slate, and toward the mana stone.

It’s difficult to focus at first as I haven’t cast a measured spell like this in some time but I manage to do it.

I feel a gentle hum resonate through my hand and into the stone. The chalk lines of the spell begin to glow with a steady, pure white light. It’s working.

As the hum ceases in my arm I am hit by a sharp electric jolt that shoots up my injured arm.

 It’s not the searing, poisonous agony from the battle, but a clean, sharp shock, like touching a live wire. 

It’s emanating from my still unresolved wounds, a violent protest from the broken part of me.

I pull my hand back, but the spell still casts successfully a ball of light envelopes the slate. 

I clutch my arm in pain. The throbbing is a hateful, familiar pulse beneath my skin.

“Shikara?” Clovis is at my side in an instant. “What happened? Is it your arm again?”

I nod, taking a shaky breath. “It’s still not right. It… it reacted to the flow of mana, even though I was using my other hand.” 

I look from my wounded arm to the two remaining slates on the workbench. The thrill of discovery is still there, but it’s now tempered by the frustrating limitations of my own broken body. “I think… I think you should handle the rest. I don’t want to risk breaking my concentration again.”

Clovis gives my shoulder a supportive squeeze, her expression shifting from worry back to a focused resolve. “Alright. Don’t push yourself. Just watch closely.”

She moves to the second piece of slate, the one intended for the corrupted stone. 

She picks up one of the dull, jagged crystals and places it in the fifth conduit circle. 

She lays her hand on the slate, closes her eyes, and I see the faint tension in her shoulders as she channels her mana.

But nothing happens.

The chalk lines remain clear and lifeless. The stone sits there unresponsive, completely unaffected by Clovis’s efforts. No light, no hum, no energy.

“Well, Arrian’s mages were right about that.” she mutters, more to herself than to me. Her brow is furrowed in thought, but not disappointment. “On to the next one.”

We move to the third piece of slate. This one she has prepared differently, drawing two smaller conduit circles at the top, both linked to the main spell. 

It’s designed to accommodate two power sources. She has her own mana stone in one and a corrupted stone in the other.

“Let’s see if the corrupted stone has any effect on the normal stone then shall we.” she theorizes, placing her hand onto the mana stone.

And again, nothing happens. The spell remains dark.

Clovis lets out a frustrated sigh, pulling her hand back. She stares at the inert spell, a deep line of concentration etched between her brows. 

“It can’t be inactive, that mana stone should work.” she whispers, a dawning realization in her voice. “What if the corrupted stone is actively absorbing any mana that is channeled?”

She places her hand back on the slate, her expression hardening with scholarly determination. “Let’s see how much it can take.”

I can feel the shift in her approach. I can almost sense the sheer volume of mana she’s pouring into the spell. The air is charged with static as the mana floods out of Clovis.

For a few seconds, nothing changes. Then, the corrupted mana stone, which had been so lifeless, begins to glow. 

The light doesn’t illuminate; it seems to swallow the surrounding light, casting long, distorted shadows across the workbench. 

The light spell itself, the actual rune in the central circle, fails to manifest.

Clovis recoils with a hiss, snatching her hand away from the slate as if it were white-hot. She stumbles back a step, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“Clovis! What is it? Are you okay?” I clamour to her in an attempt to understand what happened. 

She shakes her head, her face pale and contorted in pain. She keeps rubbing at her eyes, her knuckles pressing hard against the sockets.

“No,” she chokes out, her voice tight and strained. “My eyes they’re burning.”

She lowers her hands, and I see her crimson irises are wide, shimmering with unshed tears.

But as I look closer I can see a faint red hue in the white part of her eyes. 

She’s blinking rapidly, as if trying to clear away an invisible irritant. As she continues to blink a faint dribble of blood eeks its way out of her tear ducts.

The dull red glow from the corrupted stone fades, leaving the room with no light to spare.