Somewhere in Briar's Bridge…
Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating a man standing at the highest point of his mansion, watching over the city. A knock came to the door and, for a moment, the man wished he could stand here and look at the city he had built with his own two hands.
"Come in." The man spoke, alleviating the thought. A woman stepped in and the room dimly lit up in her presence. "What is it?"
"Everything's completed, sir." The woman replied.
"What of the two cores?"
"They're ready. We await your orders, sir."
"Good," the man turned away from the window. "We are about to embark on the change this place needs. Start it."
- - -
Victoria wasn't one for much small talk. I wasn't either, but I tried to do some small talk to gather an idea of her character as we walked under the sun and growing clouds. I was always met with silence or short and simple sentences that told me she didn't want me knowing about her. This, obviously, left me with nothing but time to think back on the past year.
I had spent a year under the wing of Lady Tyresa as her 'faithful' ser-- follower. I learned a lot under her guidance. I learned the ways of old magic, stories of her adventures when she walked the very earth freely (yeah, apparently gods walked amongst men once) but those stories quickly always turned bittersweet.
Lady Tyresa would never talk about modern magic. Every time she did, I was only met with 'inefficient, poor taste, a waste of time' comments. I would sneak some time during shopping to read up on modern magic theory and it always was the same like my goddess said…
Modern magic theory existed under three things: spell circles, chants, and power. At the lowest level, spells like Firebolt, Gale, Stonebolt, and Bubble were simple spell circles and maybe one singular second of a chant. In order to get used to these three core powers, modern magic began working on shortening spell chants and spell circle conjuration, but it left the power lackluster.
I spent much time in the dead of night looking at a spell's code and realizing the three main core ideas of modern magic theory fluctuated depending on what the user wanted it to do so I started experimenting to 'fix' the spells.
I had gotten through the Basic and most of the Intermediate spells, but I slowed to a stop with the top portion of intermediate spells due to their mana costs.
I may have high mana capacity, but that doesn't mean I should be wasteful, I remembered thinking then. With time and effort, I built up my efficiency with deconstructing spells and altering them on a whim.
I snapped out of my thoughts as Victoria had slowed to a stop. She was apparently seeing something I couldn't see. I moved the mana up to my eyes and noticed mana fluctuations in the distance of the forest. I moved the mana to my ears and listened.
"…help…!" Someone screamed. A set of cries followed after with cackling and a loud thud.
"Someone's being hurt." I whispered.
"We should continue." Victoria motioned. She continued down the path, ignoring the cries of the person.
"You definitely heard that, right?" I asked, jogging to catch up to her. "We should help them."
"If we stopped and helped them, that would mean more trouble for us. I want to get to wherever these petals bloom as soon as possible." Victoria replied.
My eyes narrowed in disbelief. How could someone hear someone in need of help and just ignore it?
"If you want to do that, you can. I'm going to help them." I turned and started off the beaten path. Victoria called after me, but I didn't care.
I soon found the source of the cries. A broken wagon and a dead man lay splattered across the broken path. A woman and her two girls cowered as the thieves hovered over them. A knight, bruised and broken, scattered off to the side.
"Give yourself up and your daughters may live." One of the thieves spoke. "And we'll make this easy. If you don't, more people are going to die at your hands."
"Fuck… you… I'm not… dead, yet…" The knight pushed himself, almost collapsing instantly.
"Oho, this guy's still alive?" Another thief raised an eyebrow. The turned, grabbing the broken knight and lifting him up just enough to see the pure terror in the innocents' face behind him. "What are you going to do about it? You should just stay down if you know what's good for you."
The knight's hands trembled as he grabbed the thief, pulling him forward. The thief slammed onto the ground with the knight as they wrestled. The knight flipped himself on top and delivered the knock out blow to the thief's head.
The two other thieves rushed forward, attacking the knight and piercing his side.
I stepped out of the covering and summoned Runtime. I waved the staff with a simple gesture, charging the air with purple glyphs. The thieves and knight drew their attention to the glyphs as one exploded in wind, pushing one of the thieves into a nearby tree.
I lifted my free hand over to the thief, closing it and morphing one of the glyphs to alter the tree to trap the thief. I pointed the staff at the remaining thief and watched as he soared upwards at the knight's fist and slammed onto the ground hard.
"Bind." I spoke the spell to life. Tendrils of plant matter shot out of the ground, wrapping around the last thief, lifting him off the ground. "Are you okay?" I asked the mother and her daughters.
"M-my husband…" The mother sniffed. "H-he…"
"It's alright now." I smiled. For a moment, their worries seemed to disappear as the two daughters sensed the fearful situation was over and started to cry.
It's alright, girls." The mother turned to her daughters, braving a face and hugging her daughters.
I turned my attention over to the injured knight. He was pushing himself up into a sitting position, failing and collapsing.
"Are you okay?" I asked, kneeling next to him.
"Just… a scratch." He winced. I lifted my hand, gathering the purple glyph.
"This won't heal you, but it will preserve you until you can find a healer." I told him. The glyph switched, turning green as it faded into his armor and chest. I watched as some energy returned to him. The pain nullifier portion on the spell's code would have such an effect but the thin barrier that encased him would certainly help him survive a lethal attack.
"T-thank you, mage." The knight replied. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and let out a sigh of relief.
"It's no problem." I glanced behind my shoulder to see Victoria standing off to the side. "Can you handle them?"
"I can."
"I'll leave you to it then Sir…" I trailed, noticing the symbol of thorns branded on his armor.
"Ardyn."
"Sir Ardyn." I offered him a hand and hoisted him up onto his feet.
Without another word, I stepped back into the forest, passing Victoria and continuing on our way.
"The Mistress expects me to believe a support mage can get me to where we need to go?" Victoria exhaled sharply. "You saved them. I see that, but preservation doesn't stop pursuit. I need someone who can end threats."
"Whether I end lives or let them live is none of your concern. You only need to be taken to the East." I casually spat back.
I didn't wait for her response. The forest swallowed our footsteps again, the cries and blood left behind like they'd never existed. Still, the glyphs lingered in my palm, faint and warm, refusing to fully disperse.
Ending threats was easy.
Rewrite made it too easy.
I'd seen it before—how clean a spell became when you stopped caring about the outcome. A single adjustment. One recompiled line. The thieves would've vanished, their code unraveled into nothing but purple motes drifting into the soil. Efficient. Permanent.
Wrong.
Lady Tyresa's voice surfaced uninvited, lazy and sharp all at once. If you can take something from the world, Elias, she'd said, ask yourself what you gain by doing so.
I flexed my fingers, letting the remaining glyphs dissolve into the air.
Life wasn't a resource. It wasn't currency. It wasn't something to be spent simply because it was convenient. Maybe that was my Creed—hoarding breaths that didn't belong to me. Preserving stories that hadn't finished being told yet.
Behind me, Victoria walked in silence. But it wasn't the same silence as before. Her gaze kept drifting back toward the path we'd left. Toward the knight. Toward the children. Toward the soundless space where a choice had been made without her.
"You'll get hurt doing things your way," she said eventually, not looking at me.
"Maybe," I replied. "But not today."
The air shifted then—subtle, wrong. A tremor in the mana flow ahead, faint but deliberate. Not wild magic. Not natural.
Structured.
Contained.
I stopped walking.
Victoria took two more steps before realizing I wasn't beside her anymore. She turned, irritation flashing across her face—then froze as she felt it too.
Whatever waited for us in Briar's Bridge wasn't going to ask whether lives were worth saving. And I had the sinking feeling that, sooner rather than later, Rewrite would ask me the same question.