Chapter 10 Renna  

When we got to the bunk room, Mateo asked Renna, “Top or bottom, your mageness?”

The young woman did not appreciate his humor, ignored him, and took the free bunk above mine. She opened her satchel and pulled out two large tomes. Although I had gotten a lot of experience speaking the language, I only recognized some basic words. The alphabet was somewhat similar to what I was used to. Most of the letters were written strangely, but it was close enough for me to read, albeit extremely slowly.

On examining one title, it was a book about learning how to learn spells, and the other text focused on manifesting innate spell forms for your affinities. Renna was focused on the second, so I asked, “What affinity are you trying to develop an ability for?”

She looked at me with some surprise. “Earth. That is why I am traveling with master mage Dacian. I already tapped my air ability. Once I gain my earth affinity ability, I will be assigned to fire mage next.”

I asked, “Were you the young woman with all those elemental affinities over seventy for the four elements?”

Renna smiled shyly, “I can not believe I am famous enough for even a legionnaire to know who I am.”

“I did not know your name, just that there were a number of people excited about your potential.” I tried to keep the conversation going as Renna seemed to back away, “What ability do you have with your air affinity?”

She had a bright smile, “Flight!” My roommates were quickly interested in the conversation, asking her dozens of questions and overwhelming her. She admitted her ability gave her flight as fast as a horse, but her aether stores only allowed about 20 minutes of flight.

“That is still amazing. All I can do is store items in a dimensional space,” I responded.

“You are a porter? That is rare!” She looked dubious suddenly. “Show me. Make something appear out of thin air.”

I pulled a tray of coins out, watched her eyes bug out, and put them back. My roommates also had magic envy—or maybe the tray of large silver coins was a lot of money for them.

“How big is your space? Do you have any other abilities?” She asked, sitting next to me on the lower bunk, now interested in me. She was sitting really close to me, so that our hips touched.

My face felt hot, and I thought Mateo was going to say something, but I gave him a hard glare, and he kept quiet. I answered her, “A man never reveals his size on the first date. And I don’t have any way to learn a new ability. I had the help of a spell book for the dimensional space.”

“I was given a tuning stone,” she reached into her satchel and started searching. “Just channel your aether into it, and the stones will light up if you have an affinity over 15. That is considered the requirement to manifest an ability.” I remember that Damian had said the cut-off was 10 to learn an ability but did not challenge her knowledge. Renna produced a circular disc from the bag and held it up. Three circles were inscribed on it, and each circle had seven gems. I wanted to use it but not in front of everyone.

I asked, “What do the gems represent? I mean affinity-wise.”

She pointed at each one as she explained, “The inner circle is the rare affinities, the middle circle is uncommon, and the outer circle is common. This book lists them all, and these are the associated stones.” She went through and identified all the stones.

Shaping Magic (Rare)

Space

Time

Displacement

Materialism

Worlds

Void

Convergence

Unaffiliated (Uncommon)

Charm (Mind)

Illusion

Clairvoyance

Protection (Guardian)

Necromancy

Celestial

Abyssal

Elemental Magic (Common)

Fire

Air

Water

Earth

Lightning (Energy)

Spirit (Healing)

Nature (Plant)