Chương 8: Have you been licking the stones again?

Fabrisse was not at the Synod anymore. He was home. Home-home. Not dorm-home. Fabrisse didn't exactly announce his return when he slipped in through the side gate. He'd been sneaking home since he turned sixteen, enough that the boundary wards had stopped reacting and the neighbor's cat now expected treats. His house wasn't far from the Twelvefold campus, but it was still far enough that nobody came here unless they meant to.

The Kestovar home sat tucked in the outer boroughs, where the commune started forgetting they were a commune, quietly secluding like it hoped the tax auditors wouldn't notice it existed. Ironically, magical universities tended to be built well away from cities anyway, partly for reasons of sanctity, but mostly because spell leakage tended to make the locals burst into song or spontaneously molt. Rubin had nearly ruptured a blood vessel whisper-yelling at Lorvan in the corridor.

Severa had refused to make eye contact. And someone (he suspected Cuman) had stuck a note on his dorm door that simply read: ROCK WITCH. His sister, Dubbie, was half-curled on the sitting couch with a dog-eared copy of The Vintner's Affair and a mug of lukewarm steepleaf. She didn't look up when he entered.

"You're home," she murmured, eyes still on the page.

"For the time being," Fabrisse said, toeing off his shoes and collapsing onto the nearest cushion with a sigh.

"Where's Mom?"

"She's on shrine duty." The Order had enchanted a local shrine, one with a creek that could cure townsfolk of simple diseases. There had to be at least two attendants at all times. Her son was just slapped in the face by a divine artifact god-box, and she's on shrine duty? That didn't sit right. His mother wasn't the sort to stay away when something like this happened.

Maybe the Synod had flagged the artifact as volatile, too sensitive to involve an emotionally compromised party, like the mage-mother of the boy it chose to punch. But then they shouldn't have allowed him to go home. Despite what had been an uncharacteristically unambiguous subsection in Section 14, the Archmagi still spent six hours deciding whether he should be let go.

He couldn't hear a single word of what they said, which was concerning because it meant the conversation was serious enough to warrant privacy wards. Eventually Archmagus Rolen appeared, informed him he was free to leave pending further review, and vanished before he could ask a single question.

"This late?"

"They need extra hands. The shrine's being renovated. How was the week?" Dubbs doesn't realize how loaded a question it is. He had no words to describe the week; in fact, he was barely processing the entire thing. Probably the only reason why he'd managed to remain so calm was that he was too confused about the whole ordeal in general.

"They made us redo the Flame Litany twice because Montreal's a perfectionist and Aldren tried to hover too close to the dais again." Fabrisse rolled to the creaky edge of his childhood cot, flanked by a chipped glowing lantern and the smell of lavender-scented disinfectant. The sigils still hovered in his periphery, and he'd tried hard to pretend they didn't exist, to limited success.

"Mhm."

"Then the invocation took forever. Lorvan saw me. Draeth insulted my academic lineage."

"Mhm." Dubbie turned a page.

"I collected a new shiny Medarian pebble by the river."

"Mhm."

"And then I triggered the Eidralith and I became the Chosen One of the Twelvefold Flame," he added.

"Mhm—wait, what?" She slapped her book shut around her thumb like a startled clam. Okay. His family definitely didn't know.

"It was more of an accident, really. I tripped. Possibly resonated. And now there's a semi-visible arcane apparition giving me tutorial objectives." He gestured vaguely to the space next to his head, where a glyph was slowly blinking [Pending Calibration] in a stiff font he'd never seen before. Every letter looked like bricks from different molds.

The white color of the floating glyph sheet was unmistakably the same one as the Eidralith, however, so it was difficult for him to deny that whatever he was seeing was brought by that dumb box. Dubbie stared at him, then at the empty air, then back at him.

"Have you been licking the stones again?"

"I have never licked the stones," Fabrisse said. He did lick the stones once, and fortunately, it did have unique properties. Unfortunately, that unique property was hallucination. Dubbie had seen the fallout. Wasn't his proudest moment, but at least there was plausible deniability.

"Besides, even if I had—which I haven't—the apparition says ingestion is ill-advised. Also, it called me a calibrator. I don't think it's a job. It hasn't specified a pay." Dubbie stared at him for a second longer before standing.

"The Eidralith is the mythical stone, right?"

"It is possibly a more complex mineralic structure." With terrible tastes, too, possibly mineralogical, judging from how it chose him.

"How big a deal is it?" He pressed his palm to his forehead and started listing facts. That was safer. Listing facts made things feel manageable. Contact triggered artifact. Artifact responded. Eidralith activation.

"I'm not sure, actually. The Archmagus makes us greet it every other year, then reminds us its blessing is something to aspire to. But it's never done anything, so I thought it's just another meaningless ritual. Until now." He scanned the information given to him on the floating glyph again.

"There's still no pay, Dubbs. This divine artifact is going to exploit me as forced labor."

"I'm making the tea," she said with a sigh.

"The one that helps with hallucination." Fabrisse watched her go, reasonably offended.

"It's not a hallucination. I can't hallucinate concepts I didn't know existed."

"Mm-hmm," came her voice from the pantry. The clink of ceramic followed.

"You said the same thing about that moss-covered spoon when you were twelve."

"That spoon bit me," Fabrisse muttered. Dubbie didn't reply, but the water started boiling. She'd always been like that—calm, slightly acerbic, and annoyingly unshakeable. A sensible girl in every way their mother approved of: unassuming, non-magical (by choice), with an ear for recipes and a terrifying knack for budgeting. Which was a shame, really, because she had more natural talent for magic than he ever did. When the recruitment missives had come, she was the one they'd wanted.

She'd smiled politely, thanked them for the offer, and declined. Fabrisse had signed his name in her place before anyone could stop him. Anything to get away from their mother, who'd banned him from rock collecting and confiscated his prized Arcanosaur-themed stamp book during what he still referred to as The Incident. He sagged further into the cushion and stared at the air just above the chipped lantern.

"This is why she banned the rocks, isn't it?" The glyphs had stopped phasing. In their place was a clean prompt: [Calibration Interface – Dormant State Detected] You are eligible for Guided Orientation. Would you like to begin the introductory tutorial? [Yes] [No] [Request More Information] There was something unnervingly cheery about the text, like a helpful waiter offering a tray of knives. His fingers twitched. Who was asking? Was he expected to answer aloud? Why were there only three options?

What if his answer was 'possibly'? This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Somewhere beneath the tangle of wonder and apprehension, his mind kept circling back to one maddening question: why had the Eidralith reacted to the Stupenstone? He hadn't forgotten. He couldn't forget. The moment of contact, the jolt, the light fracture across its core, the sudden spike in aetheric pressure.

He'd replayed every detail a dozen times since the wardens hauled the Eidralith away, itching to crack it open, probe its structure, maybe even run aetheric resonance tests on the fractured crystal. It would have been great if he were able to bring the Eidralith to a Stratal laboratory where necessary tools would allow him to assess the composition of the materials. However, the Synod had possibly clamped the entire chamber under restriction seals. There was no way to get to it now.

Reluctant to trust the apparition as he was, Fabrisse could not think of a better alternative. So he reached for the option marked [Yes]. Welcome, Apprentice Kestovar_28 INITIATING TUTORIAL MODE [PHASE I – Orientation & Spatial Awareness] Please remain still. Calibrating biological interface…... ERROR. Operator moved. Resuming calibration. Fabrisse stopped sinking into his seat.

"Pardon?" Do not be alarmed. The disorientation is temporary. [SYSTEM NOTE: Tutorial Mode may not be available again. Proceed with care.] [ADDITIONAL NOTE: Please report to the nearest Calibration Annex to reinitiate Tutorial if required.] Calibration Annex? No such department existed at the Synod, nor had he ever heard the term in any magical institution or historical record.

The academy had Calibration Chambers for enchanted instruments, certainly, but no Calibration Annexes, and definitely nothing dedicated to... whatever this was. Which era was the Eidralith actually from? Every line of text it produced felt strangely disconnected from the modern world. Legacy Tokens. Operators. Calibration.

The artifact seemed to have belonged to an entirely different magical tradition, one that seemed to assume its user would recognize concepts nobody at the Synod had spoken of in centuries, if they had ever existed at all. He saw 'core' and 'mental', and he assumed he had to concentrate on something. He tried focusing, mentally groping for... well, himself, as if rummaging through a disorganized closet. Something clicked. Not quite a thought nor a memory, but a sensation like tapping on cold glass.

A translucent panel slid into view just above his right eye, displaying unfamiliar, overly formal text: CALIBRATOR PROFILE FABRISSE KESTOVAR_28 Class Thaumaturge (Magus-Student) Field Role Inert-Adept (Dormant) Epochal Registration Legacy Validated Status Conscious – Mildly Concerned Level 4 EXP 1, 035/1, 500 Focus (FP) 30/30 STR (Strength) 5 DEX (Dexterity) 11 FOR (Fortitude) 4 INT (Intuition) 22 RES (Inner Resonance) 2 EMO (Emotional Attunement) 1 The aetheric overlay was too fast, too grating.

The blinking rhythm didn't follow a loop, changing every few seconds, slightly faster, slightly dimmer. The experience was horrific. His brain kept trying to find the pattern, and failing. Loop it or stop it, he silently begged. He focused on a single glyph and let his eyes blur. One thing at a time, he reminded himself. One thing was manageable. RES. Hold on… RES stands for Inner Resonance. The Eidralith can quantify how good I am at handling spells. If RES could be measured, maybe it could be improved. Maybe…

Just maybe… There is a way for me to become a good spellcaster— Another glyph jumped at him. [ADDITIONAL NOTE: As a Legacy Calibrator, your stats may differ from modern magical standards.] Unlocked data reflects your baseline potential. Progression will update values as objectives are fulfilled. He muttered silent curses and tried to dismiss the screen.

Instead, another rectangular apparition opened to the side: [MENU ACCESS GRANTED – DETAILED TABS] [Profile] [Inventory] [Quests] [Affinity] [Skills] → [WARNING: Skill recognition protocol out of sync with local definitions.] [DIAGNOSTIC: Residual Rock Affinity – Medium High] How exactly am I supposed to select one of you? He reached out and jabbed a finger toward Inventory. His fingertip passed through the glowing letters. Nothing else happened. At that moment, Dubbie returned balancing two steaming mugs.

"Tea?" she asked. Fabrisse rummaged through his satchel.

"Not now. I need to access my Inventory."

"Access your what?" Dubbie asked.

"Inventory. I need to do this properly."

"Your inventory?"

"Yes."

"What is an inventory?"

"A place where things are stored."

"That's called a cupboard. It's behind you," she said. But he was already at work. Dubbie watched as he pulled out his academic robe, shook it out, and slipped it on in record speed. He smoothed the sleeves straight, adjusted the collar so the sigil-thread faced forward, and re-fastened the clasp at the throat.

"Now... I'll need two ritual candles, a clean casting surface, chalk if I have any left, and preferably a small focusing crystal. A tuning fork would also improve the resonance, but I don't own one." She sighed, setting his cup on the nearby table.

"Have you tried just… thinking about it?"

"Thinking about what?"

"Your inventory. Whatever that is. Have you tried it before?" He stopped rummaging. Simply thinking about it, yes. That was how he was able to interact with the Eidralith. It was really that simple. His fingers and mouth twitched simultaneously. Reluctantly, he let the thought form. Inventory. A rectangular panel appeared in front of him with casual ease.

[Inventory Accessed] Storage slots: 9 / 15 filled Contents: — 1x Medarian River Pebble (Tagged: 'definitely magical') — 1x Backup Teacup (Chipped) — 1x Rune-Inked Paper — 1x Pocket Mortar (Steel) — 1x Pocket Pestle (Steel) — 1x Miniature Brass Balance — 1x Nested Measuring Spoon — 1x Rock Satchel (Extension) — 1x Legacy Encrypted Memorandum Wait. Encrypted Memorandum? A Secret Note? Since when has this been in my pocket?