Fallen Mage Regressor

Each of the classrooms were empty. There wasn't a single student to be found, save for the ones holding hands and acting like lovesick fools around the campus.

The stalls were still being set up, and Mal was deeply confused.

It wasn't until that evening he would receive an explanation.

He showed up to Cassandra's home and she'd invited him in with an odd look in her eyes, traces of humor playing at her lips.

After about thirty minutes of explanation regarding some plant that Mal had never heard of, he finally asked the question that had been on his mind for the past thirty minutes.

"Why is everybody acting insane, and where did everyone go?"

"It's good that you ask that," she said. "Because it has to do with the next subject of our lesson."

"And what would that be?"

"Why, none other than the summer solstice."

Mal remembered that being discussed several times. He hadn't kept an eye on it, knowing that Cassandra would alert him.

"But what does that have to do with everyone else?"

Although witchcraft has fallen out of favor, the old traditions still stuck around. The wizards adopted it, even if they don't know the reason for it. The celebrations had become a part of the culture itself."

"So? What does that have to do with me?"

"The sun is at its highest point. The earth is alive with energy. Mana is particularly vibrant. This is an opportunity to enhance your connection with the planet." She glanced over at his witchcraft journal. "I believe that elf woman gave you her own version of an old ritual. You'll want to use that."

"You don't want me to use your method?"

"At some point in the future. But it's likely that whatever old tricks that lady has are far more potent than anything I can muster. You'd be a fool to waste the opportunity."

"You still haven't explained why people are acting so strange."

She took a sip of that tea, loose top sliding with the motion.

"This time period is associated with fertility," she said. "The festival became a celebration of love." She paused and looked at Mal meaningfully. "And this is the one addition I'm going to add to the woman's ritual. You have to enhance your connection with the earth by connecting with another."

I really don't like where this is going, Mal thought.

"You, my erstwhile apprentice, need a date for the summer solstice tomorrow."

Malfrasius Patoal was the greatest wizard in the history of wizards. He was an endbringer. He had been fated to destroy the world. Yet against all odds, he had turned back the clock and changed his destiny.

And he was apparently required to take a date to the summer solstice festival tomorrow.

Someday, he thought. I will get revenge on that woman for everything she's done to me.

She had been emphatic. There was no getting out of it. If he wanted to increase his abilities further, he would have to follow the old traditions.

With that in mind, he made his decision.

"Honored leader, this was a terrible idea."

"Philo can't believe that he agreed to this."

To Mal's left was Philo, to his right was Rolam, and behind them was Lusia. The mid-afternoon sun was high in the sky, and couples were walking hand in hand across the campus grounds.

"Let's be realistic," Mal said without turning around. "None of us were getting dates. Going as a group of friends was the right choice."

"None of us?" Rolam said. "Speak for yourself, I practically had the noble ladies lining up to ask me."

"Ask you to leave them alone," Philo muttered.

"You want to say that to my face?!"

Lusia's voice piped up from the back.

"Can we go see that stall?" she asked.

Mal looked off at where she'd pointed. There was a set of targets off toward the back and a man sitting at the stall.

Mal walked over to it, Lusia behind him.

"How much?" he said.

The man glanced up from a set of papers he was reading and looked at the two. "Ah, a couple. For you two, we'll do a discount and say five silver."

Mal shook his head. "We're not on a date, but we'll take the discount."

The man at the stall blinked, then shrugged.

"Okay." He pointed at the targets. "Point of the game is simple. You have to hit those targets using some magic."

"Wouldn't an Arcane Sphere make it child's play?"

"You won't be using an Arcane Sphere."

He reached under the stall and pulled out a long object with an opening at the end and a rod-like construction. "This here is a rifle, sourced from Violeko. All you do is pump your mana into the thing and it'll charge up, then you can fire with it. Pretty neat stuff. Not quite ready for battle, but an interesting tool for games like this."

Mal took the rifle from the man's hand and pointed it toward the target. He tried his best to steady the rifle, then realized that he needed to use two hands. Once he figured that out, he lined up the shot, then squeezed the trigger.

A small purple dart of light flew forward and hit the wall next to the target. The shot had gone wide by a good foot or two.

Mal set down the gun. "I'm afraid I seem to have no talent for the tool."

"It's a new thing, and the bullets are pretty tiny. Don't feel bad about it." He tilted his head. "You want another shot?"

Right as Mal was about to open his mouth to respond, another voice broke through.

"Hold on, Philo wants a turn!"

"Not before me, you overgrown lizard." Rolam snatched up the gun off the table and pointed it at the targets. "Feel my wrath, thou dishornable objects!"

He squeezed the trigger and, similar to Mal, missed entirely.

"Philo's turn."

Philo took the gun from Rolam's hands and aimed. He breathed out slowly and he seemed to use a form that suggested familiarity with the equipment.

I’d forgotten, but Philo was a member of the Violeko Empire. If anybody’s bound to have experience with this sort of tool, it would be him.

The purple blast of mana flew up nearly into the sky, hit a metal placard on the side of one of the building walls, which then reflected and smashed into someone's window. There was a loud crack and the glass shattered instantly.

Philo set the gun back on the table and stepped back.

"Philo supposes that he never was much of a good shot," he said.

The man seemed unsurprised by all of this. "That'll be ten silver—"

"May I try?"

Lusia had stepped forward, looking at the gun with a vague expression.

Mal shrugged. "Go ahead."

"I will succeed in the mission and obtain honor."

She picked up the gun and mimicked Philo's stance, the butt of the weapon sliding into her shoulder, and one hand on a grip below the barrel. She shut one eye, lined up the shot, then—

One target. Two targets. Three targets. Four targets. Five targets.

Each one hit in quick succession. Perfectly on the bullseye.

Goodness, she scares me sometimes.

She set down the gun on the stall. The man rubbed his eyes, looked at Lusia, then back at the targets.

"I didn't think I'd be giving this out," he said. "But it looks like you're getting the grand prize."

He reached back underneath the stall table and pulled out an ivory charm, painted with colors of green and red.

"This is a type of good luck charm from Violeko," he said. "I picked it up when I got the gun."

It was obvious at first glance how fine the craftsmanship was. The ivory had been carefully polished to a mirror sheen. There were letters carved into the front in a flowing calligraphy style, and the red and green paint painted leaves and flowers of exceptional detail.

Mal blinked. He could also see a mixture of plant type mana and water type mana softly emanating from it in slow, gentle waves.

Lusia took the charm from the man and looked at it in the open palm of her hand. There was a braided cord that had been inserted through a hole. It was clearly meant to be worn as a bracelet.

She looked over at Mal and bowed her head. "My lord."

He raised his eyebrows. Whatever they'd been teaching her at the servants' classes was correct, though it was an older tradition. It was still normal for servants acting as champions to bring the spoils of war back to their lord or lady. Mal had been taught in that style of etiquette many years ago, and it had stuck around with him even though he'd never once been the subject of the tradition.

He extended his hand. "You may."

She slowly kneeled and brought the charm up to Mal's wrist, then wrapped the cord around it and tied it tight. Her fingers grazed Mal's skin, touch feather-light and gentle, despite how awful he knew she was at most things requiring tenderness.

Despite himself, he tensed. It was a flash of fear, genuine and real and shameful, and he forced it back down and relaxed.

The softness was strange in light of her maid problems.

But then again, he thought. When I needed her help harvesting that plant for the Shattercore potion, she was surprisingly effective. It's only in sewing and other household chores that she seems to struggle so much.

She stood back up after finishing tying the charm, then bowed.

It was then that Mal noticed that both Philo and Rolam had gone silent. The man at the stall had raised a single eyebrow about as high as he physically could.

Rolam coughed into his hand with a bright red flush on his face.

"Honored leader…" he scratched his cheek. "Chama women are rather direct, aren't they?"

Philo grunted. "Philo feels as if he's just seen something dirty."

Lusia and Mal glanced at each other. For his part, Mal was confused as to what they could be referring to. Lusia, likewise, had that vacant look on her face that indicated she was unsure of the subject of the conversation.

Oh well, it probably wasn't important.

For the next three hours, they went from stall to stall. At one point, they ran across Savaly, who'd cast an irritated look at Mal and Lusia, before it had been smoothed over with a paper-thin smile. Her date, one of her followers from her inner circle, seemed downright murderous when he saw Mal.

Mal was unsure what he had done to earn such enmity, but had done his best to navigate the situation with some modicum of social decency.

It had been about thirty minutes to noon when the festival was starting to wind down for lunch, that he realized everyone, both Philo and Rolam, had left at some point.

Leaving just him and Lusia.

He stretched his arms and looked over at one of the benches scattered around the campus. "Let's go ahead and take a short break."

Lusia nodded. "Yes, master."

They both took a seat on opposite ends of the bench. Mal glanced at the sun, and he knew that it wouldn't be long before it was time to begin the summer solstice ritual. He would have to head out of town for it, as he didn't have enough, as apparently the ritual worked better in the wild. Plus, he didn't want the other students to see him making a flower crown. That would invite a number of questions that Mal wasn't prepared to answer.

He shifted his position and the ivory charm bracelet brushed against his skin. He would need to see if there was some kind of hidden effect attached to the object. It was emanating mana, there was clearly something about it. He just had to discover what.

But before any of that, he thought. I should probably give her something.

He reached into his cloak and took out a small wrapped box. "Lusia, it's your nineteenth birthday, isn't it?"

Her gaze sharpened and she snapped her head toward him. "Yes?"

He slid the box across the bench to her. "I went ahead and got you something. It's traditional to give gifts to friends on their days of birth, isn't it?"

Her eyebrows drew together by the slightest fraction. Her gaze darted down to the box, then she reached forward and lifted it up and placed it in her lap.

She unwrapped the paper and took out the handful of objects within—a small whetstone, a type of polishing oil, and a few other odds and ends.

"It's a kit for dagger maintenance," he said. "I'd noticed that your weapons were starting to go a little blunt."

She stared at the gifts, then packed them back up and set them to her side. Every muscle in her body was tight and taut, the flex visible underneath her cloak.

Mal frowned and worked his way through what he could have done that could have brought about that reaction.

"You were afraid of me, earlier."

What? How did she—?

He laughed and hid his tense fist from her view. "What do you mean? Why would I be afraid of you?"

"That's what I want to know," she said. "At first, I thought it was just my imagination. I'd seen the way you looked at me in the past, the way your arms trembled, the way your shoulders trembled, and I thought nothing of it."

The most words she'd said in one go, and it was about this?

Mal's mouth was dry. It was taking everything he had not to run from the situation.

How had he missed this? How had he been so open? Nobody had so much as commented on his reactions to her—yet this girl with all the facial range of a particularly expressive stone had seen through him like he was clear glass.

"Did I do something wrong?" she asked. " "Did I offend you?"

"No, Lusia. It's not your fault, I just—"

I'm just scared, because you remind me of the woman who killed me.

I'm just scared because you are the woman who killed me. I'm scared because I don't know what I'll do. If it turns out that there's only one way this ends.

But Mal couldn't say any of that. He would come off as a crazy person, there was no possible way she could believe him. And besides that, it wasn't fair to her.

He looked at her for a long time, and something seemed to click in his head.

She's not her.

The Lusia he'd known would have never offered him a bracelet, tradition or not. The Lusia he'd known wouldn't have asked him for a reason their relationship had changed. The heroine wouldn't have done that either. She would have just stabbed him.

"I was scared," he said.

Her eyes widened. "Why?"

"Because I was afraid that with your power, you would hurt me."

"I would never do that, master."

The words were delivered with zero inflection, yet Mal could feel their softness all the same.

He laughed to himself.

What a fool I've been.

"I know," he said. "I understand that now."

He stood up and glanced back at the sun. That conversation had taken a chunk out of his time, and he needed to rush down for the solstice.

"I need to get going," he said. "But we'll talk about this later."

She reached out a hand, then drew back and nodded.

"I understand."

Mal broke off into a run for the gates.

It was time to perform the summer solstice ritual.

Only a small risk of death, he thought. It's practically an old friend at this point.

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