“So. Do you understand everything I just said?”
“Ugh…. yeah…”
“Alright, then predict what element and alignment the holy wall spell would be.”
“Um… light alignment and earth element?”
“Correct. Although different variants exist such as..?”
“Holy water wall and holy fire wall”
“You are forgetting holy ice wall.”
I know that I was the one who requested to become an apprentice, but this is so much information so fast. Seriously, it's my first day! Why do I need to remember exact spell names and their alignments? Shouldn’t the first thing be the fundamentals like what alignments and elements even are?
“Um… excuse me Ms. teacher-”
“Just call me Calliope. Being called teacher feels weird.”
“Alright then, Ms. Calliope. Why am I memorizing spell alignments and elements?”
“So that you can them easier”
“Ok, so shouldn’t we first cover what an alignment and element is?”
Upon hearing me ask that question Calliope froze. Something tells me she did not prepare a lesson plan or anything at all.
“Hey Ms. Calliope, what is that over there?”
Looking around the room that was apparently Calliope’s private quarters, a teddy bear caught my eye. I didn’t think Calliope was the type of person to like teddy bears, but to each their own.
“Oh, that? That's a poppet.”
“A what?”
“A poppet. Basically it is a catalyst that you can use to cast magic on people directly”
Hm… being able to cast magic on others through an intermediary? That sounds like it could be interesting.
“So theoretically, could you say burn someone through a poppet?”
“Not exactly, a poppet is more like-”
Calliope began to explain to me about the intricacies behind poppets. Seems she could actually teach when given a topic to talk about.
“Poppets typically are some sort of stuffed doll or stuffed animal. If you have a hair from someone, you can bind the poppet to them by weaving their hair into the toy. Once the poppet is bound you can do a variety of different things to the poppet which will affect the subject you have bound it to. While you cannot burn a poppet and expect the real person to also burn, you can apply blessings and curses to the poppet which will carry over to the real person.”
“So theoretically, if I could bind multiple poppets to myself and apply a blessing to them all, I could become incredibly strong?”
“Not really, you can only have a single poppet actively bound to you at a time. Also, while I called them blessings, for the most part the blessing involving poppets has some form of price equal to the boon received.”
“For example?”
“Well there are the simple resistance blessings where you become resistant to attacks but your gear will break faster."
How exactly does something like that even work?
"There are also anti-curse blessings. They can completely seal a curse, but in exchange the blessing will also seal memories."
"Wait so it doesn't get rid of the curse, just seals it?
"Yeah, it's mostly used as a last ditch effort. Since curses are very dangerous, whenever you either do not have the means of removing the curse yourself or whenever you don't know what the curse is, it is usually safest to just seal it. Although depending on how long you take before you actually get rid of the curse properly, the memories sealed could be lost forever."
"That's terrifying"
"Yeah, there have been some instances where the memories sealed were the memories of entire friendships or even relationships."
I can't even begin to imagine something like that. Having your best friend not remember who you are…
Thud
The sound of a book landing in front of me broke me from my train of thought
"Here. It's a book outlining various blessings and curses. You seem interested so let me show you how to do something with them."
Calliope began browsing through the book before landing on a page near the front.
“Here. Let me show you how to bind one. I should have some more poppets somewhere around here…”
Turning the book around so I could read it, I could see images of various dolls and their descriptions. Apparently certain dolls were more effective than others. If a poppet was based off of something similar to the person it was bound to, the curse or blessing would be more effective.
“Ah, here. Two dolls.”
In her hands Calliope held two brown dolls that both vaguely resembled humans. The dolls looked as though they were woven using a thick fiber, they looked like they were meant to be constantly put under strain rather than be used for comfort like a typical child’s doll would.
“Here you go, now pull out one of your hairs. I’ll do the same”
After the both of us pulled out a hair Calliope showed me how to weave the hair in. Once we were done our dolls both had a contrasting colored stripe running along their bodies. Red for Calliope and her red hair, and White for my white hair.
“Alright, now that the poppets are bound to us, let me show you a basic tracking blessing.”
“Tracking… blessing?”
“Yes, here, read this.”
Calliope flipped through the book until it was on a specific chapter. Looking at the title it read ‘tracking: for keeping an eye on your allies’
“So is this for spying or?”
“Kind of, it's a blessing that lets you see things through someone else’s perspective. It is a type of light alignment magic. This spell is relatively unique in that it doesn’t really have that much of a downside to it aside from leaving your own body vulnerable.”
“So after telling me about boons and drawbacks you show me a spell that has no drawback?”
“Well I kind of do not want to put you into any more danger than I already have, not to mention this will be the first spell you will cast. I figured an easy one with little drawbacks was best.”
Well that actually makes sense.
“Can you read me the items required?”
“A bound poppet, a small mana crystal of light alignment, salt powder, the eye of a bird, and angel’s dust. What angel’s dust?”
“Oh don’t worry about that. Angel dust isn’t actually from Angels. Anyways, I believe I have everything here already, let me look around.”
While she was looking for the ingredients I was looking through the book. So many different spells… blessings that improved your charisma but shortened your lifespan, curses that would slowly make it harder and harder to breathe the longer the curse was active. Looking at some others there were blessings that seemed worse to have than the curses.
“Here’s everything. Oh, the curse sealing spell. I always have the stuff to perform that in my room at all times. I hope that I will never have to use it though, for obvious reasons.”
Looking back down at the book the page was indeed on that spell. It was listed as a blessing, but to me it was nothing more than switching one curse for another. Before I let myself continue that though I flipped back to the other blessing. Calliope wanted to teach me how to cast a tracking blessing, not a curse sealing one.
“Alright, here. Take my poppet and I’ll take yours.”
“Wait, why are we taking each other’s poppet?”
“Well, I want to show you how you can use it. No point in looking through your own eyes, right?”
“Yeah, guess that’s true. Alright, so now that we have everything, what's next?”
“Well, you see, all you gotta do is-”
Calliope proceeded to show how to cast the magic. First was a circle of salt surrounding the poppet, crystal, and eye.
“Now you just have to place your hand on the poppet. Think about the spell you wish to cast, and then imagine pouring in some of your mana into it.”
The second she finished talking, the doll began to glow. Once she removed her hand the doll started to rise slightly off the ground with the eye and crystal following soon after. As soon as the ingredients were about a foot off the ground the light engulfed it all, and a dull thud was heard.
“Wha- what just happened?”
“Magic.”
Calliope then picked up the doll off of the floor.
“Look, now if I cover the eyes of this doll, I can now see what you are seeing. I can’t exactly show you what it is like, so try doing it yourself.”
“Got it.”
Following her directions I drew the circle with salt. Placing the doll in the middle of the circle, then the eye, and finally the mana crystal.
“Good, now think of the tracking spell and imagine pouring mana into it. Think of it like flowing water.”
Flowing water… no matter how much I imagined water flowing in, nothing happened. No, abyssals don’t have mana, right? Abyssal magic is all cast with soul energy. Not to mention the blessing that the goddess gave me gives me a mana signature, but not that much actual mana. What if I imagine pouring some soul energy instead…
Concentrating on the somewhat familiar feeling of pouring in soul energy, the doll began to glow. Not the same bright white glow that it had while Calliope cast the spell, but a deep purple glow.
Thud
And just like before the doll fell to the ground with a thud.
“Odd. I have never seen a purple light before, but it seems like it worked. Try covering the eyes of the doll and tell me what happens.”
Picking up the doll I covered the eyes like instructed. As soon as I did so everything changed. I was no longer looking at Calliope, rather I was looking at myself. Shaking my head side to side, I could see the image of me doing the same action.
“It's weird, isn’t it?”
“Certainly. I can still control myself as normal, but now I can see everything like you do…”
As soon as I took my hands off of the doll’s eyes I could see through my own eyes once again. I was going to ask Calliope one more question but before I could there was a knocking at the door.
“Come in!”
Slowly the door opened as two people walked in. The first was Mr. Johnston, and the second was Nicole.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt your two’s study session over here, but it's getting late. Apparently May sent little Nicole over here to pick Luise up.”
“Ah, well we can pick this up again next class, Luise. Go on, I do not want to see May get upset at me because you return late.”
“Got it, thanks Ms. Calliope.”
With that I left the room and the guild. Nicole was asking me some basic questions about what had happened and I responded, but my mind was on other things.
I was wondering if perhaps I had been under some sort of poppet myself, after all I don’t have any of my memories… but seeing as how Calliope was able to bind a poppet to me and the one poppet rule thing disproves that. And purple, why was the poppet’s glow purple? Was it because I used soul energy instead of mana?
Ugh… one step at a time, one step at a time. I just wish answers came to me faster than the questions did.
