Tale of Four

”You alright?” Alice looked up from her papers and groaned, seeing Chesh standing there with a thin smile, looking down on her. Sighing, she pushed away the book she was holding and grumbled.

”This guy is really the worst Chesh.” Taking the book, she cleared her throat, ”Runes are the structure of the world. Everything that is creation is runecraft. The immaterial and material are all runecraft. The world is one large stone waiting to be sculpted into what we desire.” Dropping the book to the side, she sighed, ”To make such a grand, unprovable claim.” Alice nearly cried out, ”It’s like he wants to sound smart when he isn’t.”

Chesh frowned and cleared the space next to Alice. Taking a seat next to her, she leane her head on her shoulder and let out a deep exhale, ”You might be right.” Alice groaned and shook her head.

”I would be, if it weren’t for the cave. He obviously understood something, it’s just that the guy has the worst personality. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was kicked out of the Mad House because of it.” They stayed silent for a moment, Chesh playing with Alice’s hair as if she wasn’t paying full attention, before laughing.

”Then are you going to stop, just because he is an annoying man?” Alice grinned and shook he rhead. Grabbing the book, she proudly held it to the sky and laughed.

”I won’t let him defeat me. All I need to know is how the cave was created. He likes puzzles. even if these look like meaningless ramblings, there must be some truth in them.” Looking around at the scattered work, she lowered the book in defeat, ”It’s only a matter of finding the starting point. Once I have that, then this will be easy.”

”If it’s you, then it will be easy.” Chesh pumped her fists and looked down at the quill on Alice’s belt, ”What about that. Have you studied it yet?” Alice’s eyes widened in shock as she quickly pulled it free and held it to her face.

”I completely forgot about this. I was so focused on the books.” Staring at it, she studied each rune put in, her eyes widening in horror and disbelief. Leaning in, her mouth fell agape, followed by a chuckle of disbelief. Stroking the golden feather, she couldn’t help but shake her head.

”There are runes in rune. I can’t even read them properly. And this material.” Touching the tip of the quill, she sighed, ”What even is this? I remember some of the materials teacher worked with, but nothing was like this.”

”What ones can you read?” Alice stared hard, trying to analyse every part of the quill.

”Endless? No, that’s wrong, maybe infinite, no, that’s also wrong.” Grabbing her chin and rubbing it like her teacher, she smiled, ”Limitless. That’s it.” Standing up, Alice paced back and forth under Chesh’s watchful gaze, ”Limtless. He’s a rune master, I’m such an idiot. All of these are going to be in service of creating runes. He carved runes into solid objects using a quill. That would require a constant influx of Arcane power to be made possible.”

Testing her theory, she walked over to one of the stone walls. Unafraid that it might break, she dragged it down the wall and smiled, seeing it fail to put a dent in the stone. Putting it back in place, she let the arcane power in her body flow through the quill. The runes all over lit up, making a white glow. Like ink, they flowed down towards the tip, connecting to small engravings she hadn’t noticed before, lighting up at the bottom like a drop of water. Placing the quill on the wall, it pierced through it like paper.

Despite the success, Alice stopped almost instantly, able to understand why the Limtless rune was on the pen. ”This thing is dangerous.” Turning around to Chesh, she let it drop out of her hand, ”God, that thing will eat a person dry if not careful.” Bending down, she picked it up. Despite her fears, she smiled at the quill, feeling like it was created for her. For normal people, it would be a death sentence that would suck one’s Arcane power dry and use the person themselves to continue fueling it, but for her, someone chosen, a one in a million talent, a person sailed by her teacher for having an immense amount of power in her body that didn’t make sense, it was perfect.

”Still, Alice, it’s best to be careful. You know how absorbed you get into research when it’s fun.” Alice nodded in response to Chesh’s serious tone.

”I need to understand the rest of the runes on it first. There is no way that a trickster would have created such a tool that would put himself in danger. I bet you he did this just to play with whoever got their hand on it, hoping they would accidentally hurt themselves.” Holding it up to the window, the golden fathers glowed atop its crimson body, ”I’m sure of it. Too bad his trick won’t work on me.” They looked at one another and shared a playful grin.

”I wonder why he dedicates so much time to runecraft, however. The art is kinda useless other than creating artefacts, and he didn’t seem like the type to help others based on his books and cave.” Alice frowned and looked around at the scattered works.

”Maybe he found a use for it beyond that. You don’t make something like this without a reason...” Alice paused, ”The world is a stone waiting to be carved.” Looking at Chesh, the black-haired girl tilted her head and smiled, ”Surely not, there’s no way.” Alice ran over to the book she had just read and dove into it, reading through everything, double-checking each page as she did.

”He rabbles a lot, but sometimes he says weird things.” Alice held the book towards Chesh, ”The world is a stone one to be moulded and carved, destroyed and rebuilt. Trees, rocks, humans and animals. Water, fire, wind and the clouds. All of it is created, yet what about the arcane which can produce these things?” Rubbing the back of her head, she turned the page over and nearly threw it away, seeing that the author hadn’t finished the thought and moved on to another topic, knowing he did so to annoy whoever read it.

”Even if he didn’t finish it, he has a point. What is the arcane?” Clicking her fingers, she created a flame at the tip of her hand, ”Every time I create a spell, I am creating something, am I not. But how am I doing it, Chesh? Becuase I thought of soemthing...” Her words trailed as she looked at the book and flipped to the first page.

It was a blank page with a single line.

’All is runecraft, we just don’t know it.’

”All is runecraft.” Repeating the words to herself, she let out a half-laugh that slowly built up into a full-on chuckle of disbelief. Holding her hand out, she let her mind empty and tried to form a spell. Nothing occurred, but she felt a part of her power flow out of her body.

Thinking of water, she did the same thing, and a puddle formed in her hand. Thinking of a waterball, water appeared, but in the form of a ball that held itself together. Letting it drop, she stared at her hand and tilted her head, ”Waterdrop.” Holding a finger out, the droplets fell from it, not stopping until the thought left her mind.

With a thought, she ran out of the room and looked around for some paper. Finding a blank piece, she quickly returned, locked the room, and grabbed a pen and ink. Drawing the rune of water on one. Letting the arcane power flow through it, she saw water fall from the paper until it disintegrated. Repeating her previous spells she had just cast, her eyes widened along with a smile each time they created the same results.

”The arcnae is runecraft. Chesh, I think I understand what he was thinking. Runes, that’s what we are creating in our mind when we make a spell. It makes so much sense if you think about it like that. The more complex a spell, the more time it takes to cast. We are simply drawing bigger runes in our minds. It’s why they fail if they are too complex. Think. An artefact won’t work if we mess up at some point or if it is too complex for the material to bind it together.”

Pacing back and forth, her smile grew wider with each step, ”If this is true, Chesh.” Alice paused, her eyes sparkling in the sunlight, ”You can make life Chesh. The ultimate proof of the Magi’s knowledge. The endpoint of my command.” Looking out the window and seeing the screaming statue of Azwald, Alice’s grin almost split her face in half, ”Everything makes so much sense. Why I was led to the cave, why I came here. I figured it out. This is the endpoint of everything. I just need to learn how to perfect it.” Taking the quill out, she held it to the sky and spun around, squealing like a child, ”It proves everything.”