Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

«But I meant teaching you some kickass spells, not…» she scowled at the bowl full of marbles in front of her. «…throwing marbles over your shoulders. Shouldn’t I at least aim a couple at your forehead? I bet you’d be a lot more motivated to get it right that way.»

«If you do that, I’m going to track you down to your room and suffocate you in your sleep,» Zorian threatened heatedly. The whole reason he was having her do this was so that he could practice this stupid trick without suffering through Xvim’s methods.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. After a few seconds he felt the mana-charged marble pass in the vicinity of his face but couldn’t pinpoint over which shoulder it flew.

«Left,» he tried.

«No, right,» Taiven. «Now you’re just guessing, aren’t you? Just give it a rest for today, you’re not going to get anywhere once you get frustrated.»

«No, I just need a couple of minutes to calm down,» Zorian sighed. Taiven groaned in response and he opened both eyes so he could properly glare at her. «Why are you being so difficult about this, anyway? You know I can’t ask anyone else to do this for me, right? I don’t know anyone else who can aim their throws precisely enough, and none of them could keep charging marbles for more than half an hour without depleting their reserves.»

«I know, I know,» Taiven sighed. «And I’m glad you asked me for help. It’s the least I could do after… well, you know. But you’re not taking advantage of me properly!»

Zorian raised an eyebrow.

«Err, that came out wrong,» Taiven chuckled nervously. «What I meant was: I can do much more than this. My accurate marble throwing skills aren’t my only gift. I know I must seem pretty pathetic for getting knocked out by a single spell but come on!»

«I never thought of you as pathetic because of that, Taiven,» Zorian sighed. «But alright. What can the great Taiven do for me?»

«Teach you how to fight, of course!» she grinned.

«The magical way, I hope,» Zorian remarked warningly.

«You should never underestimate the usefulness of a fist to the face, even in a magical duel,» Taiven grunted. «But yes, I meant the magical way. Were you telling the truth when you told the old guy who hired us you can cast magic missile, shield and flamethrower?»

«Of course,» Zorian said.

«Well, let’s see them,» Taiven said, waving towards a duo of dummies on the other side of the room.

«Err, won’t your parents mind if I wreck their training dummies?» Zorian asked.

She rolled her eyes. «The whole reason I told you to come to my place was so we could train here. The whole room is warded, and those dummies especially. You won’t even scratch them, trust me.»

Shrugging, Zorian quickly cast a magic missile, shaping it into a piercer and weaving a homing function into it so it would hit the head of the dummy. The bolt of force sped across the room and struck the dummy square in the forehead. The faceless wooden head of the dummy bent backwards with the force of the blow in a manner that would snap a real human’s neck in several places, but then promptly snapped back to its default position as if nothing was wrong.

«A decent magic missile,» Taiven praised. «I like that you can cast one without a spell focus — I thought that would be the first thing I would have to teach you.»

Her hands blurred in a dizzying display of skill, the chant spoken so softly he barely even heard it. A veritable swarm of magic missiles erupted from her hands, speeding towards the dummy with a lot more speed than Zorian’s piercer had and impacting it with enough force to lift it off its feet and smash it into the wall behind it. Though they were simply smashers, Zorian knew they were a lot more dangerous than the piercer he had produced, even individually.

She didn’t appear the slightest bit strained by the effort to produce the display.

«So was there any purpose for doing that, other than rubbing in how far beyond me you are?» Zorian inquired. «Firing that many magic missiles, even sequentially, would drain my reserves dry on the spot. I don’t think I’ll be repeating your feat any time soon.»

«Err, really?» Taiven asked. «I guess I kind of assumed your mana reserves are huge, like your brothers’. How many magic missiles can you cast in one sitting?»

«11,» Zorian said, pointedly ignoring her first remark. «It started out as 8, but I increased it somewhat.»

«Eight!?» Taiven gaped. «But that’s… practically below average!»

Zorian knew nothing good would come out of blowing up at her. It was Taiven. She didn’t really think before speaking, and if you were bothered by that you had no business interacting with her.

«Does that mean you admit defeat and we should get back to the marbles?» he asked with deceptive cheer.