LONG AGO

  Virgil sank into a leather armchair with his freshly refilled glass of whiskey. Across from him, Cassian sat sideways on his own chair, one lanky leg thrown over the arm. Ren, at his side, was leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs and his forehead scrunched with concentration.

  The sun had long since set, but the merrily crackling fire gave them more than enough light to see each other by.

  “It doesn’t matter, does it?” Virgil said. “It can’t be changed.”

  “As a thought experiment, though,” Cassian replied with an airy wave of his hand. If there was one thing he loved above all else, it was thought experiments. “For the sake of conversation.”

  Virgil snorted and sipped his drink. “We are only the second generation of System users, and you are already so eager to see it done away with? Why, when you benefit so greatly?”

  Cassian rolled his eyes, too used to the jibe to react. As a young noble, he would have been given access to magic even before the System existed. Back then, it was only the nobles who could afford to spend the time training rather than working, and aristocrats were taught from a young age, so they grew up with a natural understanding.

  In this day and age, he still learned magic — but he took full advantage of the System’s shortcuts so he could make the expected progress with half the necessary labor.

  “I’m for it,” Ren said. He was a broad fellow, raised on a farm and with the shoulders to show for it. His self esteem was such, however, that he constantly tried to appear as small as possible, the result being entirely ineffective and somewhat unsettling. “I wouldn’t be here without the System.”

  Cassian nodded thoughtfully. Without the System, the three of them would never have met. Ren would never have learned enough magic on his own to enter the College, and Virgil — well, Virgil would always have made it to the College, but in another life he would have had to do it as a librarian or some such rather than a student.

  “I’m against it, then,” sniped Virgil.

  Cassian laughed. Ren looked a little hurt.

  Virgil waved the comment off. “For the thought experiment only, my friend. To have a proper debate, particularly about something so irrelevant, we must hear both sides.”

  Mollified, Ren offered his argument. “The System makes magic accessible to those who would otherwise never have made use of it,” he said. “With more magic-users, we are able to learn far more rapidly, as we have more accounts to learn from. Not to mention how the skill descriptions add to our understanding of previously known spells, and the skill list allows us to see which spells are unlocked by which pre-requisites. One day, we will have a body of knowledge so complete that a person could map their entire life’s skill set from an early age, and work toward mastery the likes of which we have never seen.”

  “Counterpoint,” Cassian offered, “Knowing everything ahead of time takes half the fun out of it.”

  Ren chuckled at that, but it was more out of politeness than anything. He’d learned long ago that people were more likely to keep him around if he laughed at their jokes. Even though the College was more accepting these days, he was still something of a rarity in these circles.

  “Genuine counterpoint,” Virgil said, “the world is going to become a far more violent place.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  That weakened the smile on Cassian’s face. “How do you figure?”

  “Say that a man has lost his job. He has a family to feed, his wife has just had a baby, so he becomes desperate. He goes to the market to steal a loaf of bread. The merchant sees him, tries to stop him. The man throws a fireball, hoping for a distraction. The merchant’s stall goes up in flames, burning his merchandise and wounding him in the process.”

  “But thanks to the System,” Cassian pointed out, “the merchant’s wounds fade as soon as Combat ends, and he quickly returns to full health.”

  “Fair enough,” Virgil allowed, “in the scenario where the merchant survives the attack.”

  “The merchant will survive,” said Ren. “A rising tide lifts all boats, so even as the robber gains skills, so too does the merchant. He’ll gain Stock Preservation or some such, and a shield spell for such interactions.”

  “An arms race, then? On a small scale, perhaps that works,” Virgil nodded. “But we are talking about all of Grimora. Your rising tide will cause a flood. As power grows across the kingdom, the divide between the strongest and the weakest will grow, too. What of the villager who never learns a skill? Should we condemn them to death by highway bandit?”

  Ren hesitated.

  “You’re forgetting the accessibility of it all,” Cassian stepped in. “Those villagers probably already have defensive skills, and you know how versatile skills can be. A logger has skill with an axe that works on people just as well as it does on trees. I won’t fear for the villagers.”

  “Right! The accessibility. What happens when people teach deadly skills to their children?”

  “Oh, come now,” Cassian complained.

  “Already,” Virgil insisted, “there have been reports of parents teaching their children spells which they are not prepared for. Imagine a five-year-old who learns Fireball. Imagine the destruction. In fact, you do not have to imagine. Just last week, a child burnt down his own house, dying in the process and wounding his parents.”

  “A tragedy, certainly, but not the norm.”

  “And what of the accounts we’ve heard of mass killings? People who learn deadly spells and go on a rampage? This is happening more and more, in a trend I can only imagine will continue.”

  “I did hear about that,” Ren said softly. “I’d hoped it was exaggerated.”

  “If anything, the opposite,” Virgil answered. He chuckled darkly. “Maybe we should dismantle the System. If ‘accessibility’ includes violence, we are headed towards a dark future indeed.”

  Cassian swallowed the rest of his drink. “There he goes, convincing himself again! Did it work on you too, Ren, or did he only win over himself?”

  Ren stammered a non-answer, uncertain who to agree with.

  Virgil grinned suddenly. “Don’t worry, Cass, I’m not wholly convinced. I don’t think I could part with my own skills, no matter the persuasive rhetoric. Besides, even if I wanted to, I could not. No man could. It took the united power of all the Natural Mages to create it in the first place, and I am not so arrogant as to place myself in their league.”

  “Cheers to that,” Ren said, lifting his glass.

  “I don’t know,” Cass said thoughtfully. “If anyone could, maybe it would be you.”

  PRESENT DAY

  Virgil struggled against his chains, although he knew it to be futile. Nothing in his arsenal was powerful enough to counteract the Warden’s. He was… mostly sure of it, and more afraid to try. When he’d cast Hellfire Bolt, the spell had knocked a memory loose. He felt a small piece of who he’d been, and alongside it a great fear of learning more.

  He ceased his struggle and instead rested in his imprisonment. Tied up, he wouldn’t be expected to fight. He wouldn’t have to cast. He wouldn’t have to remember.

  That night with Cassian and Ren had been so jovial — why did it fill him with such sharp sadness.

  Virgil blinked back tears and focused instead on the present.

  Inara sprinted across the room to cut the next rope. With the Warden trapped by the chandelier Desiree had dropped, Inara’s trap landed true. Barbed arrows embedded themselves deep into the Warden’s thigh.

  Desiree continued to climb along the walls. The more difficult to access the trap was, the more damage it would do. Indeed, the next one she reached was a large tub of magma, which she unceremoniously dumped onto the Warden’s head.

  Virgil watched helplessly as James swung again and again his infernal axe. The black miasma which surrounded the blade grew more powerful with every strike, and so too did the Hero’s connection to the weapon.

  He wanted to warn the Hero — but of what? All he had was a feeling. That axe was evil of the truest kind.

  A black strand of smoke trailed from the axe to the Warden’s latest wounds. The axe drank his blood to the last, and the combat ended.

  Defeated lvl 20 Warden of the Infernal Pit!

  EXP +50,000!