A Campfire Chat

The first day out the caravan from Swannport had made excellent progress, traveling nearly twenty miles before they stopped for the night. However, the roads to the west faded to cart tracks and then to nothing at all by mid morning the next day. The lack of roads meant that scouts had to blaze the trail as they went, pick ways around pitfalls rocks too big for wagons to traverse, and to avoid muddy stretches that would mire the wagons to a standstill. Even then, they had still spent four hours shoving wagons through a very shallow ford that had three feet of muddy silt -- and that was at the best crossing point.
 
Everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. They had to stop on rocky, uncomfortable ground so most were intending to sleep in wagons, which made for an uncomfortably wet, cool night filled with insects that would have normally be repelled by campfire smoke.
 
Matilda had opted to sit at the campfire. She'd made hot water and was now enjoying a bit of a tin cup of tea. She looked up as Seraphina approached as she went from camp to camp, and smiled. "Welcome, Initiate," she gently teased. Initiate was of course the title Seraphina had earned recently from the Covenant of High Sorcery in Swannport, but it was probably the least of all her titles.
 
"Greetings Teacher," she replied. "May I join your fire?"
 
"Of course," she said with a smile. Travel today had been hard for everyone, and Matilda was no exception. Her blue-black locks were stringy and matted from humidity and sweat, her face streaked with mud. Prestidigitation, after all, was fine for cleaning a small thing, but people were much too big for such petty magics; they would remain feeling filthy until they had a chance to bathe.
 
"I'm looking forward to arrival. We have big plans for the palisade and some temporary lodgings. Tents will have to do for now, but hopefully it will be enough of a respite. We'll have a keep eventually. An inn. A general store. All the trappings of frontier life!" The last was a light joke. It would be awhile before any sense of normalcy set in.
 
Seraphina noted, "Barring that, any ideas how to clean ourselves up from this loveliness?"
 
"I plan on jumping in the river within the hour of our arrival," Matilda chuckled. Smiling, she added, "I imagine you might be looking back at your purification ritual as less an inconvenient requirement of initiation, and more a very pleasing bath compared to this!"
 
"Oh I didn't mind it. I'm not at all shy about such things. Ceremony, ritual, processes, are all of interest to me," she noted. "A relaxing bath would be nice though."
 
"If I had a good, clean source I'd fill a tub, but somehow I have the feeling that even if we dug a shallow well, it would only fill with mud. Anyway, a stronger-flowing river will cure these ills."
 
She smiled. "I'm glad you endured the Covenant's little initiation ceremony, though. As inconvenient as it might have been in light of all the necessary preparations that needed to be done ahead of this journey, it means something that you took time for it. The Covenant will look after its own, although it seems you might not need such protections anymore. On the other hand, they are a great resource to refer to when it comes to finding new ways to combine and bend sorcery to new applications."
 
"I feel I'll need their help, and yours, as I learn more. It is interesting, I feel myself growing in so many ways since that night by the sea. I used to be able to bend light a bit to disguise myself, but it always failed me. This morning I tried again - you know, to secretly walk among the people and hear them without all the pretense - and I think I almost disappeared. But I could sense the magic somehow." (edited)
 
"It felt electric, like so much of my magic," she added.
 
"That's a useful ability, for certain. That happened just recently?" asked Matilda.
 
"Yes. Other things as well. It is like I'm changing faster than I thought. Nothing bad so far, but still," she replied.
 
"Archmage Thorburn said something I thought was a little bit strange the other day, but maybe it makes more sense now. He said that all power was a matter of channeling but that it came from three sources. One is internal, such as that performed by bards and sorcerers. A second source comes from greater beings, be they divine, fey, demonic, or other. But a third source he said comes from people; their love, faith, and support. I thought he meant political power. But maybe it's more than that," Matilda pondered
 
"It is. Funny enough those are like the three pillars of the Dréama. My bardic lodge. The song within, the song without, and the song beyond. The music that is the sinews of magic and therefore creation," Seraphina said. "One must learn to tap each reservoir of power to achieve one's goals," she added.
 
"Have you ever heard the tale of the Dream of a Thousand Cats?" Seraphina asked
 
"No, I can't say I have. Want some tea?"
 
"Yes please," she said pulling out a small porcelain cup and saucer from her bag.
 
Seraphina began to tell the tale. "Legend of an ancient immortal Mother Cat who roams the cities of Duskh and preaches to the strays and house cats of the alleyways a dream she has. The Cat says that once, long ago it was not the two-legged ones who ruled the waking world, but cats. They were the masters and we the pets (and sometimes prey.)"
 
"But then one day in ancient ages past, a mankin who wished not longer to be prey, realized that if a thousand of his people would sing the same song to the gods in their dreams. On the same night, in the same way, uniting their voices in dreamland, they they could change the world."
 
"It took time, but one by one they began dreaming the same dream. Singing the same song. Until a thousand nighttime journeys made the gods weep, and then they heard us, and no longer were the cats our masters. They preyed now on vermin, and served us."
 
"The Mother Cat knows this. She alone remembers how it once was. So she tells her tale to kittens and cats everywhere. Most ignore her, for the life of many cats is plush for we rarely hunt them as they hunted us. But someday, there will be a dream of thousand cats. And they will sing the same song together in thousand nighttimes. And the gods will weep once more - and the world will change once again."
 
"So treat your cats with the kindness they would rarely give us, so they dream of mice and balls of string, and never again be our masters but instead our pets."
 
She added with a laugh, "The full story is much longer, but that is the short version. The subtext of the story though is that people have power is so many ways. Life itself has power. Love itself is so very powerful," she added.
 
Matilda chuckled, amused with the story. "Hm. Well I certainly hope I never end up a pet of a Cat master. I've seen how they play with things!
"But the point is taken. When people work together, there is power."
 
Seraphina nodded, “And when they dream together, there if change.” She added, “Our lives our changing. You now have big responsibilities. We all do. But," she said, changing the subject slightly. "What is next in my practicing?"
 
"That depends on you. If you work to grow your potential with sorcery, you'll gain power and flexibility other bards don't have. If you dedicate yourself to it, you may be able to replicate feats of magic developed by Arch-sorcerers. So, what's next is up to you."
 
"I tend to overplan. Uncertainty is not my happy place," Seraphina answered. "So many possibilities."
 
Matilda hummed. “I don’t see anything wrong with having a plan.” She paused. “What’s your plan? As far as sorcery?”
 
“Right now? Learn what I can, especially how to manipulate magic, sculpt and shape it. Perhaps, try to sculpt my spellsongs, if that is possible. There is a point when I’ll need to make a decision though. But I believe I have time to explore a bit.”
 
"Well, you already know what I'd choose," Matilda said with a wide smile." She filled Seraphina's cup with tea. "It's hot. We're hot. But trust me, you'll feel better after you drink it."
 
Seraphina drank the tea and responded favorably to the tea. “I hadn’t imagined! This is good.”
 
"It should be," she said with a grin. "It's a healing potion. Sort of. Granted, its potency was to expire soon, but nonetheless, it should be refreshing. I like it heated and infused with hot water, simply for the flavor of it."
 
She reached into her pack, which lay on the ground between her feet. "Here, look." She brought out a glass flask. She shook it a little and Seraphina could see a few bubbles form. It was of a strange green color that seemed to pick up the light from the fire (flourescent). "As long as there are bubbles, it's potent and works as well as a healing potion. Once the bubbles are gone, the potency is too weak to be much help. It still tastes nice, even diluted in a cup of hot water. And better yet, when in places you must boil the water before drinking it - such as the jungle or rain forest - it removes that flat taste water gets when it's heated a while."
 
Seraphina’s eye’s flickered briefly and turned golden while looking at the tea. She said, “I can see it. I can’t tell what kind of magic, but I can see it in the cup.”
 
Matilda chuckled. "A very temporary kind, if any. Maybe even just because I've made it and I tend to shed magic like a cat sheds hair. These potions I brew are made entirely with just your standard herbalist kit. I haven't purposely put any magic in it, although I suppose if I did they would last a lot longer. But, that would take time and resources I don't have right now."
 
Seraphina nodded and drank more tea. "I need to figure out how to master magic. I see it, I think, around me here and there, but I don't know what I'm seeing."
 
"The truest path for that lies entirely within the purview of sorcery." Of course she would say that, and believe, it too.
"Only through sorcery can you understand magic so well that you can manipulate the very structure of magic itself to bend beyond the rules that define any spell. True understanding can never be explained, of course. It's something you feel and perceive, and nothing written can describe it in such way that it can be clearly communicated to another. Other forms of magic, such as witchcraft and druidism, as well as various diving and so-called 'natural' magics, are channeled from other powers, other sources. Without the understanding of sorcery, the spellcaster can only mimic what they have been given, drawing upon resources not fully their own. Bardic magic is closer, but relies on casting spells by rote instead of by feeling the magic. Alchemistry is similar. Clearly, every tradition is going to be most enthusiastic about their own way of doing things, and Matilda really believed in her own. It would be an uphill battle to try to believe otherwise, since sorcery was the only form of magic she truly understood.
 
Seraphina nodded, "I think there is more to spellsongs than you know, but I think that through sorcery I may be able to feel the underlying magic of the songs and wordplay as well. I feel that there is more on the edge of my understanding. I'm unsure how to apply this feeling but I can cast more now without tiring myself as fast as before."
 
Matilda nodded. "Then you already know, or at least feel a hint of the potential. Through sorcery, limits can be far exceeded. The greatest practitioners can accomplish literally anything they can imagine, though the price for doing so must always be paid."
 
"Price?" the young n0ble asked.
 
"Sure! You pay it yourself every time you cast anything, be it bardic or sorcerer magic. As you grow stronger, you'll be able to channel greater magics, pay higher costs. Ultimately, should you open the pathways to the most powerful magic, the price for doing so may be higher. You might have to find magical things to help power or direct spells. The most powerful magic of all, of course, is available only to dedicated sorcerers with years of experience. But even they must pay a heavy price to cast this magic."
 
Seraphina nodded, “The casting is less important than the understanding, though it is addictive. The power that is. I also feel more powerful with the riddles and songs of Dréama than I did before. Might I ask, how did you learn you had potential in sorcery?” (edited)
 
"I'm not exactly sure," Matilda admitted. "I've been able to do some of my cantrips since I was a child. Both my parents had magic."
 
“I wasn’t taught even the simplest riddles, I suppose what you’d call a cantrip, until I had completed my first seven years of study. I dimly remember my mother using some magic, but she was very conservative with it, except in performance or assisting with my father or uncle. Back in the day that is.”
 
"Your mother assists the Viceroy?" asked Matilda.
 
“From time to time,” Seraphina answered. “She is an expert in the Voice. I can use it to command and charm. I can hurt or startle. I can even cast my voice to others I can see, and I can hear their whispers on the wind when they reply. But my mother, like all Dréama, and even many other traditions of spellsingers, can send her voice overseas or further. It is quite helpful, though limited.”
 
She added, “My father is…was… the Viceroy’s uncle and a member of Court.”
 
"I can see how that is useful," Matilda stated. "I heard bards can sing the soul back into the recently deceased, even. With help from some magicite, of course."
 
Seraphina nodded, “I believe it is true. Though I cannot, nor have I witnessed it. Nor my mother…I think. I really do not know. But as my understanding increases and I learn the voices of the gods then perhaps some day. I cannot speak for other traditions if they can or cannot.”
 
Seraphina asked, “Have you seen or used magicite?”
 
Matilda shook her head. "Seen, yes. But not used. That stuff is rare and expensive."
 
“Indeed,” she noted. “Someday we should get our hands on some. Just in case.”
Seraphina paused and asked another question, “Earlier, when you were mentioning baths, it reminded me of something I wanted to ask. In the ritual. What was the underlying meaning of the purification? Is it a local thing or do all Sorcerer’s Guilds do so?”
 
“I ask because it isn’t the first initiation I’ve been through,” Seraphina added. “But the first like that.”
 
"You know, the whole cleansing thing. The idea was to welcome you to your new path as a sorcerer, though it sounds like you won't be walking that path anyway. But, I'm curious. Why were you asking about magicite?"
 
“Honestly, I haven’t made a decision yet,” Seraphina said. “I may walk both, one, or neither. I have some more exploration to do first and I do value your advice, help, and deeply appreciate the welcome.”
 
“As for the magicite, well, I’m interested in studying how it might be used,” she added. “And, you reminded me that maybe I could learn to breath life into another.”
 
Matilda said, "I think there are certainly holy knights that can do it, but... either no one in Swannport can, or possibly more likely -- they won't. But it would not surprise me at all if someone at the Archives can do it. Pretty sure they can. Although I wonder at the end result. Would the deceased return with new magitech tubes sticking out of them and some kind of steam-powered engine running their heart? Would they retain the pallor of death? Well, anyway, sorcery can do it, too, so they say. One thing is certain, though. The gods are not moved to do it. I don't know it, but I bet Esyllt knows the whys of it."
 
Seraphina nodded with a smile, “I bet she does. Are you religious?”
 
"Nope, not really. I mean, I don't doubt the gods existence or anything. In fact, I'm certain there are a lot more actual gods than just the three venerated throughout the Duskhan Empire. But none of them seem.... you know. Hands-on, so to speak. And, those priests that seem to have been empowered by a god and wields actual divine magic don't seem overly, um... miraculous, you know? More like someone borrowing someone else's sorcery. That's just my opinion anyway."
 
“I wouldn’t want them to be hands on. This is our test, our world. They help through sign, symbol, sound, and trust. Trust in us to explore and come to understand this wonderful creation,” Seraphina said with a naturalistic reverence. Adding with a laugh she said, “But my friend, though I may be devout, and every day is a joyous mystery, I am not dogmatic or particularly orthodox. I feel that the music of creation takes many forms, our sorcery is one of them. I’m gladdened that we have the opportunity to learn and understand this magic. That’s why I believe.”
 
Matilda nodded, then found she'd finished her tea. "Well, tomorrow is another long march. We should get some rest so we can start fresh."
 
“Very well,” she said. “I’m going to stargaze for a bit then. I’ll take care of the fire.”
 
She then used her newfound magic to quench the fire and then walked the perimeter to watch stars before returning to her tent for sleep and precious rest before the morrow.