Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

«No, not really,» Zorian sighed. «I just came to grab some alchemical supplies and then I’ll go make something for miss Ambercomb here. What did you want with me?»

«Eh, it can wait a while,» Zach said dismissively. «What are you making? Maybe I can help — I’m pretty good at alchemy.»

«Is there anything you’re not good at?» asked Zorian with a snort.

«You’d be surprised,» mumbled Zach.

Ibery watched their interaction in silence, but Zach was a fairly sociable person, so by the time Zorian returned from his room with a box of supplies the two of them were engaged in lively conversation. Mostly about Ibery’s current condition.

«Man, I didn’t know your brother is such a jerk, Zorian,» Zach remarked. «No wonder you turned out to be such a… uh…»

He trailed off when Zorian raised his eyebrow at him, daring him to finish that sentence. Ibery’s reaction was more vocal.

«He’s not a jerk!» she protested. «He didn’t mean for this to happen.»

«He should have fixed it, though,» Zach insisted. «Intentionally or not, it was his fault. He shouldn’t have dumped his responsibility on his little brother like this.»

«Nobody forced Zorian to do anything,» Ibery said. «He’s doing this out of his own free will. Right, Zorian?»

«Right,» agreed Zorian. «I’m doing this because I want to.»

He actually agreed with Zach, but chose not to say so. If he had learned anything about Ibery from spending an entire revert around her it was that she had a massive crush on Fortov. No good could come from bad mouthing him in front of her. Besides, if he was to be honest with himself, Zorian had to admit he was incapable of being objective about Fortov. There was too much bad blood between the two of them.

Thankfully, the two of them quickly agreed to disagree on the topic and a comfortable silence descended on the group. Well, it was comfortable for Zorian — apparently Zach didn’t agree.

«Hey Zorian,» Zach said. «Why are we going towards the academy proper?»

«So I can access the alchemical workshop, of course,» said Zorian. He knew what Zach was getting at, of course, but he was still hoping to get away without revealing one of his most closely guarded tricks.

No such luck.

«But all the workshops are closed this late in the evening,» remarked Zach.

«Ah!» Ibery exclaimed. «He’s right! They closed down two hours ago!»

«It won’t be a problem,» Zorian assured them. «So long as we clean up after ourselves, no one will know we were there.»

«But the door is locked,» pointed out Zach.

Zorian sighed. «Not to magic, it isn’t.»

«You know unlocking spells?» asked Zach in a surprised tone.

Zorian understood his surprise — unlocking spells were restricted magic, due to their obvious abuse potential. Unless you possessed a special license, even knowing how to cast them was a crime. Not a particularly serious crime, but a crime nonetheless.

Perhaps it was good, then, that Zorian didn’t know a single unlocking spell.

«No, I don’t,» said Zorian. «But it’s just a simple mechanical lock. I’ll just manipulate the tumblers telekinetically. Piece of cake.»

They gave him a blank look. Like most people, they had no idea how locks actually worked, and how easy it was to bypass most of them. Zorian, due to his somewhat colorful childhood, did. In fact, he could pick your average lock without using magic at all — it was just a lot slower than his little magic trick and required him to carry around a set of lock picks.

He stopped in front of the door leading into the alchemical workshop and tried the handle. Like Zach said, it was locked. Shrugging, Zorian placed his palm over the keyhole and closed his eyes. He could feel Zach and Ibery cluster around him to get a better look at what he was doing, and did his best to block them out. He needed total concentration for this.

He had developed this particular trick back in his second year, after he got bored of refining the standard shaping exercises they were given. It involved flooding the locking mechanism with his mana, using the resulting mana field as a sort of ‘touch sight’ to get a feel for the lock, and then carefully moving the tumblers into proper position so he could neutralize the lock. It took him months of stubborn practice, but by now he was good enough at it to unlock most doors in 30 seconds or less.

Even warded ones. He didn’t say this to Zach and Ibery, but the door he was trying to open was actually warded. Anything even remotely important in the academy was, including most of the doors. However, as Zorian quickly discovered when he experimented with the newly-developed skill, low-level wards were very specific — they countered a handful of common unlocking spells, and nothing else. Zorian’s little trick was not a structured spell, and thus didn’t trip these rudimentary wards at all.

The door clicked and Zorian tried the door handle again. This time the door opened without resistance.

«Wow,» said Zach as they all filed into the workshop. «You can open a lock just by pressing your hand against it for a few seconds!»