“Well,” Salem said, but nothing came after that. I nodded, even as the scorpion’s body vanished, returning to whatever plane of Etherius it had been summoned from. After a few more moments of standing in silence, I gestured to the door.

  “After you?”

  Salem nodded, and we relaxed as we entered the treasure vault. I cast ethersight and began to walk through the collection of stones. All of them were useful for up to fifth circle mages, that much was true, but as always, there was a massive difference between something that scraped across the line of power with a minimal effect, and something at the very pinnacle of fifth circle magic with a broad set of additional utility.

  There were several things in the vault that called to me: a spinning circle of glass lenses that could be adjusted to empower any of the eight schools of magic stronger than the others, the jewel from a breed of dragon that had stones embedded into their foreheads, and a faceted sapphire filled with what felt like an entire pond’s worth of water in an extraspatial pocket that could be drawn on for water spells chief among them.

  I had just about doubled back to pick one of those when I spotted something familiar in the edges of my ethersight. I turned and walked over, then picked up the stone. It was smooth and black, covered in runes of silver and purple, and it glowed with enough magic to mark it as one of the three or four dozen stones in the room that were bordering on sixth circle. Even without reading the placard that described its effects, I could feel the stone’s link to my curse magic. It would focus and amplify any magic – that was the point of a focus – but it would do a lot more for curses. And maybe something else? The runes shimmered, and a glance at the description confirmed that it did indeed also help focus magic for rituals slightly higher than baseline.

  It was the perfect focusing material for my staff. The slowstrength opal had served me well, and I was certain it would pass on a good amount of affinity, but this runed cursestone was almost as perfect as I could hope to use for a staff.

  “Made a selection?” Salem asked, tilting his head. I nodded and showed him, and he showed me his own pick, a vibrant shard of a comet that had fallen to earth, glowing with extremely potent divination abilities.

  We took our selections back, and then both went to our ritual rooms to incorporate them into our tools, only to find that our workshops had merged into a single, absolutely massive workspace. We stood there for a moment, surveying the room, and Salem let out an impressed whistle. I nodded in agreement. The room had clearly been upgraded in more than just size.

  The floors of the space were made of gray slate, smoothed into a clean surface for writing on with chalk or other magical substances. Low work tables with shelves ran along the back and side walls, with a set of partially filled bookcases, covered with glass, on the other, leaving only the entry wall, which was blank. The bookcases didn’t have any spell guides in them, but they did have lots of books on theory in them. There were books written on ritual magic, on material science, on mental structuring, and more.

  I let my gaze drift to the benches, where I could see the various mundane supplies that each of our respective ritual rooms had once held laid out neatly. There were organized sticks of chalk in different colors, string, protractors, bundles of feathers, and bottles of dried herbs. But there were also a handful of new materials that I hadn’t been familiar with in either of our rooms before. I didn’t recognize several of them, the ones that I assumed Salem would be more familiar with, but the other half that I did know looked to be excellent. There was a carved wooden box filled with neat, crisp sheets of blank paper next to a file system labeled with different purposes for prospective future spellglyphs. A silver knife, absurdly sharp, sat next to the stack, ready for me to use for my blood price spell.

  “Woah.”

  Despite the huge upgrade, it was getting late – I had worked an entire shift, then gone fighting monsters, and I was tired. Each of us took some of the chalk and began to set up our mage tools ritual, after which we spent a bit of time reading in our room together, before we fell asleep. The following morning, it was time for abjuration, and I practically skipped into the classroom, still delighted by the runed cursestone and upgraded ritual room.

  “Well, don’t you look happy,” professor Caeruleum said, raising their eyebrow. I grinned at them and gave a brief explanation, causing them to nod in understanding, then sigh. “If only I’d been able to join the Coven of the Twilight Grotto. Still, the teacher’s package is good compensation.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked, knitting my eyebrows together. They waved their hand dismissively, but said nothing, and I took my seat, thinking over what they could have meant. Was there some way to keep access to the ritual space after I graduated?

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Before I could really come to anything definitive – something that would have been near impossible without being able to test on the room itself – class began, and professor Caeruleum began to animate the chalk.

  “Welcome back everyone! I hope you’ve been enjoying your time back in classes, or at the very least that they’ve been tolerable. We have to buckle down this semester if we’re going to get you up to scratch on abjuration spells, especially for those of you in your second year, who aren’t quite as familiar with fourth circle spells. But what are those fourth circle spells? We’ll start with this one.”

  They gestured at the board, and I frowned, leaning in to read the spell. There were elements that altered life force and the mind as well, but also some portions that reminded me a lot of the general dispel, or of disrupt casting. Was this the true form spell that I’d seen on the syllabus?

  “True form,” professor Caeruleum confirmed. “Now, for any of you concerned, this spell doesn’t reverse true changes.”

  I let out a soft sigh of relief at that. While I’d been a bit more concerned about being kicked out of my human form, the idea of my human form being forcibly reverted to its initial presentation had crossed my mind.

  “What does that even mean?” the tall half-giant asked.

  “The spell strips away personal appearance based illusions like those created by false face, kitsune bloodlines, and some faeries. It also undoes the flesh shaping of creatures that inherently mimic or take on masks of other forms, like mimics, doppelgangers, and some faeries. Finally, it undoes temporary transformations, like those wrought by animal morph, druidic girdles, or the blessings of many animal gods.”

  “If all of those aren’t true, then you still haven’t answered my question, just told me what it can do,” the rather combative man responded, causing professor Caeruleum to sigh.

  “What it does not do is reverse true changes. It does not undo scars or heal wounds, those are true changes to the body. Permanent, fundamental material changes, like those worked by some transmutation spells to actually rewrite the material substance, are true changes. And finally, if a creature has two forms that it can change between, the spell only works to force them to the form they spend the majority of their time in. For example, a werewolf who spends nearly all his time in wolf form, hunting in the forest, and only rarely enters civilization, would be forced to their wolf form. A selkie who only rarely takes on their seal form, would be forced into their human form.”

  I felt my eyebrows raise at that. When they’d said true changes, I’d known that I wouldn’t need to be worried about my appearance, but it seemed like I wouldn’t even need to worry about a draconic form – after all, I could barely even remember the last time I’d taken on that form. Being huge was usually far more of an inconvenience than it was a boon.

  “Any more questions on true form? Excellent. Our next spell is banish. It’s a simple spell, one that shunts who or whatever you cast it on to the plane where their magic originated. That makes it an excellent counter for taking care of any sort of summoner, but it’s also a good way to escape being thrown to one of the hells by a portal-using aberrant. The spell takes the path of least resistance, returning them to the nearest unoccupied area to when they were last on that plane.”

  I paused for an instant, wondering if there was any way to weave that into my massive curse. I wasn’t sure there was, but it was something to consider if the avatar did need to be put down. There was a fifty-fifty chance its plane of origin would be the Traitor Wyrm’s realm, since that’s where its essence originated, even if it only separated and became distinct upon arriving on earth.

  “Of course, it is ultimately only a fourth circle spell. It’s an excellent spell, but it can be resisted by a being using their own magic. But resisted isn’t the same thing as ignored, and if you can catch one off guard, weakened, or when its power or mind is occupied, it can be an excellent tool, and one that can punch well above its weight class, especially if you layer the spells on one another.”

  I sighed. It made sense, but it was a little disappointing. I turned my attention to the third spell on the board. This one heavily resembled the general dispel, but instead of being focused into a point, it seemed spherical? Almost like an energy barrier, but anchored to space, rather than to a person.

  “Sphere of spell protection,” professor Caeruleum said fondly. “For any of you interested in a career as a warder, this is one of the bread and butter spells you’ll be using, alongside permanency, alarms, dimension wards, protective runes and arcane seal. The spell prevents any magic – songcalling, bloodlines, divinities, whatever – whose power ranks as weaker than a fourth circle spell from passing through a designated three-dimensional volume. In particular, either a sphere, cube, or cylinder. A fourth circle spell, or something as potent as one, will sail right through, however. Still, it makes for an excellent tool.”

  Caeruleum gestured to the fourth and final spell. This one heavily resembled suppress enchantments, a spell I’d not had much use for ever since I’d developed my own self-repairing mental shielding. It was clearly more advanced though, and I spotted lots of interactions with psionic threading.

  “Reflect enchantments. This is a step up from suppress, as instead of simply allowing you to operate normally, this spell turns the mind altering magic back on its source. Someone cast fear? You can reflect it onto them, forcing them to contest their own spell. A dream invasion? Invade their dreams instead. It’s a key spell for any of you who are looking to join task forces to hunt down illegal mind magic usage.”

  I quickly started jotting down some notes on reflect enchantments – it sounded like a great spell to share with Salem, if nothing else – but was cut off as professor Caeruleum continued to speak.

  “Later in the semester, I’ll be holding a special course for anyone who has a solid enough handle on these to get an invitation. For those of you in your third year, I expect you to make it. For second years, if you manage it, excellent! It’s likely to be one of your first looks at fifth circle magecraft! Now. Let’s start practicing some of these spell parts. Follow me…”

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