3.37 A Critical Weakness

So... I know we just had an exposition chapter, which leads me to the question -- is this too much exposition? You guys have to tell me if this is too much exposition, alright?

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“And how, exactly, does the Mages’ Guild plan to permanently destroy any demons, never mind the ones specifically stalking us?” high priest Hannis asked, leaning out of the carriage’s window with a sneer. “Have they suddenly worked out magics that escape even the gods?”

Bernt had done his best to explain Iriala’s plan without specifically mentioning Jori or the hells, so he supposed some skepticism was to be expected. Still, they only really needed to know their end of it.

He hadn’t been sure whether the high priests were aware of who he was – specifically, that he was the Underkeeper associated with the demon that their temples had been slandering all over Halfbridge. As it turned out, they hadn’t looked into him at all. Of course, that didn’t stop the high priest of Noruk from being condescending.

“They said it was an experiment,” Bernt explained evasively. “We’ll kill them if they attack us regardless, right? I just wanted to let you know that the guild would try to help keep them from coming back. Good communication is important, right?”

“They should spend their efforts on something more plausible.” Hannis grumbled, settling back into his seat. Accepting the tacit dismissal, Bernt slowed down and let the carriage pull ahead of him. He was satisfied. He’d avoided contacting Jori where anyone could see so far, for fear that the priests would get wind of it. While Beseri law and Torvald would probably protect him, he didn’t want to deal with the inevitable mess it would cause for the entire expedition.

Now, that wasn’t going to be a problem anymore. He could contact Jori without raising suspicion. The priests would assume he was scrying to communicate with Iriala. They wouldn’t know he was an abysmal scryer, or that he could be talking to a demon in the first place.

That was one problem taken care of.

Looking around, Bernt found Estrid walking near the back alongside Elyn. The bard was showing off her flute, holding it out to demonstrate different fingerings while the other woman tried to copy her with a stick.

The druid had turned out to be a ravenously and indiscriminately curious person. She had questioned him in detail on his method for healing spiritual injury on the day they met, and only branched out from there, asking about spellforms, the principles behind runes and even what it felt like to cast spells. A few days before they’d arrived in Gobford, she’d convinced him to show her how to create a rune circle for spell diagnostics and spent nearly an hour trying to get it to recognize her magic as a spellform. It hadn’t worked, of course. Druids didn’t cast spells – at least not in the same way mages did.

Going over his notes last night, though, Bernt had developed a theory about magic. Or a hypothesis, rather. It was based on a hunch more than real evidence, and he needed more data from more magic users – ones who weren’t mages or sorcerers. Hopefully, she would indulge his curiosity, as he had hers. He waved hello as he approached them.

“Hey, Estrid, I wanted to ask you about something, do you have a minute?”

The druid blinked and exchanged a quick glance with Elyn. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

Elyn grinned a little grin and excused herself, moving back toward Torvald and Uriah. What was all that about?

Whatever. Organizing his thoughts, Bernt pulled a page of notes out of this sleeve. “So, Uriah and I are working on understanding how sorcery works. Specifically, how sorcerers grow their spirits to get more powerful and to get access to new spells. I think that there’s a sort of common thread there between mages and sorcerers, and I wanted to see if it applies to other magic users, too…”

“Oh. Okay, interesting!” Estrid said, snatching the paper from Bernt’s hand and looking it over. He let her read for a moment, then he summarized it for her. “The idea is that people’s souls, natural spirits, and the magical potential of materials are all made of the same basic metaphysical stuff. If it is, then maybe I can boil down all magical advancement to some kind of fundamental process. I mean, even demons consume souls to fuel their growth – I really think I’m onto something.”

Estrid huffed out a laugh and smirked at him. “So, what? You’re trying to see if you can become a more fundamental sort of magic user? Something new? A hybrid sorcerer isn’t enough?”

Bernt shook his head. “No, no. Or maybe, I don’t know. Mostly I’m just trying to understand sorcery better. My next investiture is supposed to fuse together with the two that I already have to form what we call an augmentation, which works as a singular whole. “But that isn’t very likely to work if I just get another normal investiture.” He held up his right arm, indicating the glowing pattern. “I don’t actually understand where the two kinds of magic intersect. And if it doesn’t work, I’m going to have a much harder time casting a lot of my spells. I’m not going to be crippled, but I’d have to build up my sorcery and my magecraft separately. I’d be a weaker mage, at least temporarily.”

The druid raised an eyebrow. “Okay, that sounds serious, but what do you want to know from me? We don’t shape our spirits like you do.”

“Right,” Bernt said, “That’s the question. I mean, I know you can’t induct me into the druidic mysteries, but the critical question is, do you add anything to your spirit? Any rituals or procedures involving magical materials or animals, pacts with spirits, or anything like that?”

Estrid shook her head and suppressed a smile. “No. Nothing like that. I know there are a lot of stereotypes about us doing rituals around a fire in the woods at night, but that’s not how it works at all. Druidism is about building a connection to nature. We use our spirits for magic, but it’s just a catalyst. The power doesn’t actually come from us at all. We’re… well, you could say that we convince mana to move around and do things for us.”

Bernt opened his mouth, stopped and then closed it again, frowning. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but this wasn’t it. What did that even mean?

“You don’t take in any magical potential at all? None?” he asked, incredulous. “Wait, what makes someone an Archdruid, then? How can you be more powerful than anybody else if there’s no fundamental growth?”

Estrid snorted a laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I just told you. It’s about influence. An Archdruid has a lot more of it and they can do more with it. I can coax mana into a seed and make it grow. I’m working on doing more, but it’s fair to say that I’m about as versatile as the seeds I have. Archdruid Leirin isn’t that restricted. He can make living plants mobile, guide their growth with his mind and imbue them with specific properties. Powerful archdruids can even grow plants with elemental properties at will. It’s rare, but it’s been proven.”

“Ah… yes, I think I’ve actually seen him do that, now that you mention it.” He hadn’t really thought of it that way… but the vines lighting the Undercity would qualify, right? “It still sounds like they do have something to do with the same forces.” Bernt thought out loud. Imbuing a plant with magic would mean giving it magical potential – a spirit of sorts. Unless the druids were inserting bits of themselves, they had to get that magical potential from somewhere.

“Maybe,” she allowed. “We don’t really experience magic the same way, so it’s hard to say.”

It would be another interesting avenue to explore, but he didn’t have the time or resources to go off chasing every tangent that presented itself. Druids didn’t work like mages or sorcerers, but this didn’t invalidate his theory. It just showed that there were a lot of different ways to use magic. If he couldn’t learn any more, he would just have to learn as much as he could from his experiments in the Reaches and then go with his best guess. Wizards had to take risks – this was what it meant to break new ground. If it didn’t work out, he would just have to find a new way forward. At least he probably wouldn’t truly stall his growth permanently.

“You know…” Estrid said slowly. “If you really want to figure this out, you could try to teach me how to cast spells.”

Bernt blinked at her owlishly. “What?”

“What?” she asked innocently. “It’s interesting, and it’s not a secret, right? Hedge mages exist, and they don’t go to the academy. You said druids and mages are born with the same talent – we can both sense and manipulate mana. So why shouldn’t I be able to learn how to cast spells?”

“Uh…” Bernt said eloquently. “I mean… that’s true. I’ve never heard of any cross-discipline casters, though. I always thought something about being a druid prevented it.”

Estrid shrugged. “We don’t have mages where I grew up, I don’t know. But we might still learn something, right? We could at least ask Leirin – he might know something about it.”

It wasn’t a terrible idea, even if it almost certainly wouldn’t work. Leirin might at least be able to tell them something about what actually separated druidism from magecraft.

“Yeah, alright. It’s worth asking about, at least.”

***

“It’s not going to work.” Leirin said bluntly. The three of them were pacing a circle around their camp for the night in what was now a well-practiced process. Estrid raised her clingweeds nearest to the camp, while Leirin threw small caltrop-like seeds just beyond.

The terrain here wasn’t suited to Uriah and Leirin’s living swamp-moat defenses. There was little soil here to hold water, and the gradient would likely result in moisture seeping into the camp itself regardless. Bernt and his low wall of cold fire now formed the outermost ring of their defenses. Ideally, any attackers would be burned first and then delayed by the pointy seeds and the clingweed, alerting the sentries and buying them as much time as possible to respond.

Bernt was glad to get a real response from the normally taciturn man at all, but since he already had him talking…

“I thought that might be the case, but why doesn’t it work? If we have the same essential gift, what keeps you from using it like I do?”

“It’s inherent to what we are.” Leirin explained with a small sigh. “The mages probably have a needlessly complicated way to explain it, but it’s actually pretty simple. Mages turn their spirits inward. You pull mana in from the world and then channel it back out in a new shape to cast a spell. Druids face outward. Our spirits are connected to the world and guide the mana that’s already there.”

“Wait, you can’t hold mana?” Bernt said, realizing the problem. “Not at all?”

Leirin shrugged. “We don’t need to, it’s all around us, after all.” He frowned over at Estrid. “You should have been able to put that together yourself.”

The younger druid shook her head, not satisfied. “I knew that – but I don’t see how that should stop us from casting spells. Why don’t we just shape the mana outside ourselves? If we can shape a spellform, we can cast a spell, right?”

“You could.” Leirin said. “If you could shape it so precisely. You can try, but I think you’d be the first. Our fine control isn’t anything like that of a mage. Their will translates to their mana so well because it’s inside their own soul. For us, it’s like tying a pen to the end of a string and trying to write with it. On the other hand, mages can’t influence anything that doesn’t come from their own soul. It’s a huge weakness.”

Estrid subsided, apparently thinking over the problem. It seemed she wasn’t quite ready to give up, despite the archdruids discouragement.

“Ehm, so why is it a weakness?” Bernt asked, voicing the question on his mind.

“Well, I suppose they don't teach you these things because, by tradition, druids don't fight other humans..." Leirin said, turning back the way they’d just come. He waved a hand and a small section of Bernt’s freshly made perpetual cold fire wall went out, the mana simply dispersed. “But you’re practically helpless against any druid that knows what they’re doing.”