After ensuring that everyone did some stretches and relieved themselves, they got back into the boat. It was currently Chandrika’s turn at the front of the ship, and Gio was once again nose-deep in his notebook.


    He surveyed the blueprint of the spell. Spellform blueprints, unlike spells, usually had a lot of extra details. This one seemed to go into painstaking minutia about the strangest aspects of the spell, while others seemed to take things for granted as common knowledge that Gio wasn’t even aware of. One such note was an entire passage about the importance of a seven-pointed star placed in the top half of a concentric circle, with special attention paid to the sharpness of each point of the star.


    Let’s review what we know about the spellform thus far. Almost all of the parameters of the spell are variable, which coupled with the overly decorative flourishing and inefficient but aesthetically pleasing placement of each symbol leads me to believe that the spell is OLD. Decorative spellforms are almost exclusively a relic of the past. These days, it’s all about condensing as much magic as possible into a single page. The fact that the spellform is so old shouldn’t be surprising, as Baphelus has been around for a very long time… the only question is: why would he bother to give me such an old spell?


    Gio’s eyes lingered upon the sigil at the very core of the spell—the veritable spoke-hub from which all other elements of the spell blossomed outward.


    What could you be? Gio thought.


    Gio flipped to an empty page in his notebook, drawing the theoretical shape of whatever the spell conjured. He turned the page to Sapphire, who was organizing her potion storage.


    “Hey Saph, what do you make of this?” Gio asked.


    “What is it?” Sapphire asked, looking at the formless mess of lines.


    “I don’t know,” Gio said, defeatedly.


    Sapphire perked up, looking sympathetically at Gio.


    “Talk me through it. What’s got you stumped?” Sapphire nudged.


    “With so many aspects of the spell being variable, It’s almost like there’s no defined shape to the spell. Like the spell could take any shape at all, depending on your imagination. The only thing is… I don’t know what I’m imagining.” Gio said.


    “Hmm… That is a problem. What material is the conjured object? Is it just SCM?” Sapphire asked.


    “Uhhh… What is SCM?” Gio blanked.


    “You know, you guys are so advanced that sometimes I forget that you’re only first years. SCM stands for Simple Conjured Matter. It’s like… the magical equivalent of the word ‘whatever’. You’ll learn about it next year.” Sapphire explained.


    Gio thought for a moment.


    “I’m not sure I follow. You can’t just not specify a material when you conjure something.” Gio answered.


    “Can’t you? Then what material does this spell specify?” Sapphire said, grinning.


    Gio looked through his notes. Nothing.


    Material… Specify… hold on.


    “How have I never noticed…?” Gio said, lost in thought.


    Gio brought out his spellbook, flipping through his spells and turning to [Reflective Shard], the only other spell he had that conjured something at the moment. He traced the spell with his finger, finding the section that dealt with the temporary glass projectile, and the subsections that provided the conjured spike with reflective properties. On a whim, Gio brought up the system designation for the spell.


    [Reflective Shard] (Tier: Upper Common)(Schools: Conjuration, Mirror) (Type: Projectile) Conjure a fast and sharp shard of mirrored glass. Deals piercing damage and may mimic the properties of materials it pierces.


    Mirrored glass. How are mirrors made? Also, I totally forgot about the part where it can mimic properties… I should try using that part of the spell soon. Oops.


    Gio summoned a shard of glass with the spell.


    “There’s no silver in this. Real mirrors use a thin coating of silver. This is more like a spike of glass that just happens to be reflective… I’ve been thinking about it like a shard of broken mirror.” Gio definitively said.


    “Silver is a challenging material to summon, most spells that summon something that appears to be silver cheat with modifiers. What made it click for you?” Sapphire asked.


    “There’s no silver blueprint in my spell. This blueprint was probably the most challenging part of the spell to scribe… and I would know, because Baphelus corrected me a lot that day.” Gio answered.


    “So… going back to your homework. What is it made out of?” Sapphire asked.


    “It doesn’t specify,” Gio replied.


    “Then It’s probably SCM. In modern magic, a lot of spellwrights will create a blueprint in their spells for Simple Conjured Matter that usually ends up being a really flimsy carbon lattice. Magic likes to take the path of least resistance, just like electricity… so when given the option, it’ll make the cheapest and easiest material that still fits the requirements of what you want to summon. So… If you don’t give it any instructions, it tends to fall apart fast. In a shower of black dust. That will make you cough. And embarrass yourself in class.” Sapphire said, looking distant.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    “Okay… so if this spell doesn’t specify, It will just summon… whatever?” Gio asked.


    “Pretty much. I cannot stress enough that this is not a typical thing to see in spellcraft. I mean… casting this spell is going to be at least ten times harder than necessary just because you will need to guide the spell manually into having the size, shape, and material you desire. Seems like a lot of work for a… something.” Sapphire said.


    “It’s just a mirror. A big mirror that can be any shape or size.” Gio replied.


    “Oh! You figured it out!” Sapphire said.


    “Yeah. One of the things that Baphelus had me working on was shaping [Reflective Shard] outside of the parameters of the written spell. I got to the point where I could make a decent-sized chunk of reflective material, but never enough to really do much with it. Looking back, I think a lot of the reason for that is that I was visualizing the wrong thing. I was focused on trying to stretch a tiny spike of mirror into a flat sheet rather than just imagining a big pane of glass that was already shaped how it needed to be. I think this lesson was predominantly to teach me that.” Gio said.


    “So… you don’t need to make the spell? That’s a little disappointing.” Sapphire responded.


    “Oh, I’m absolutely still making the spell. There’s also no way that just figuring out what I was doing wrong is going to make me a pro at shaping the spell in a new way. [Reflective Shard] is still first and foremost a spell designed to summon a tiny shard of glass.” Gio said.


    “So we do get to do the fun part!” Sapphire exclaimed.


    “Fun part? And who is “We”?” Gio asked.


    “You’re on a boat with a [Thaumaturge] and a [True Alchemist], not to mention the weaver who happens to be a [Sage]. I’m certain that we can all team up to gather ingredients to make a spell.” Sapphire said.


    “Feeling just a little bit excluded,” Jean said, chiming in over his shoulder.


    “Get a hobby besides fighting then.” Chandrika quipped, still steering the boat.


    “We all have our strong suits, and making things isn’t yours. It’s perfectly fine.” Sapphire said, patting Jean on the shoulder.


    “It’s okay. I can be the cooking guy.” Jean said, determined.


    Gio started writing a list.


    “I was thinking of using the flowers as an ink. My grandfather did something similar.” Gio said.


    “There’s a weak water mana affinity in them. Not a bad start, but it needs a binding agent to make it stay better. Maybe a gum or resin of some sort” Hatra said, interested in this part of the conversation.


    “Paper will be a challenge, but there are types of parchment that are basically fabric. Usually made from fibrous vegetation.” Chandrika noted.


    “What about that… powder that you always use?” Jean asked.


    “Embossing powder. It’s a method of powdering a material and pressing it into the paper to add more complex properties to the spell. There are a few different methods to do similar things, like foil stamping, debossing, engraving, and even inlaying.” Gio noted.


    “I can nearly guarantee that we won’t be able to accomplish any of those things, whatever they are,” Hatra said.


    “Well, maybe. Let’s not rule anything out. We can start with ink and paper, though.” Gio said.


    “Alright. we’ll keep an eye out for anything that might work.” Jean said.


    _____


    It was fifteen minutes into Jean’s turn at the front when a quiet gasp alerted the group to something.


    Jean stopped paddling the boat, staring straight forward. He pointed, not making a sound.


    Gio followed his gaze, sharply inhaling.


    There in the channel, a creature was seemingly hard at work, scraping lichen off a particularly overgrown rock that jutted partially out into the water.


    The Telchine looked exactly as Francisco’s notes described. A particularly lupine head that would not have looked out of place on a direwolf. Below the neck, fur made way for scales and flesh in the form of a surprisingly human torso and arms interspersed with dull gray scales. Behind its back, a series of sharp-looking fins jutted out at awkward angles, each covered in stripes and rings like that of a venomous creature. The creature was half-submerged, Francisco’s notes detailed two legs that terminated in flippers for fast aquatic movement.


    The Telchine noticed the boat, whipping it’s canine head over to them. Gio looked into it’s eyes and gasped. Even from far away, Gio could tell that the creature’s eyes were startling. Francisco described them as “tiny encapsulated galaxies.” A black sclera full of glittering silver flecks, encircling two perfectly white pupils.


    The Telchine took off into the water, dropping the basket of lichen it had collected into the water and quickly retreating away from the group.


    “Well… a good first contact,” Jean said flatly.


    “Look alive. That means we’re about to see a whole village full of them.” Hatra said.


    Gio put his notebook away for the moment.