Studying at the Mage's Guild

<Door opening sound; slowly>

Hmm?

<Pages of books flitter and flip>

{Speaker is mildly frantic, or at least disorganized}

Oh my! Is it that time already? I must have lost my focus on the candle height. Evening comes so quickly when you're not paying attention to it. I hope that I didn't keep you waiting.

No? Good, good. I would hate to waste your patience at the door over being in here. I cannot stress enough how thankful I am that you have opted to come assist me in my search.

There's...well, probably close to three hundred books in here to go through. I've only managed to work my way through twelve since my final lesson this morning. They're so dense sometimes and never have a good contents table...

{Listener seems kind of overwhelmed}

Oh, oh...I should probably slow down. Okay. [Inhale, exhale; calming down]

{Slower, "regular" tone of speech}

Right. You don't even know what we're looking at or for yet.

The books before you are the collected works of the late mage Vernon Krier {cr-EAR}. I'm sure you've seen the name at some point, yes?

{Listener answer}

That's right. Most people think of the Krier-Splitzer degradation curve when thinking about him. Or, for those in the study of water magic, the salinity principle was generally pioneered by him too.

While he may not be publicly renowned as much as other mages you learn about, he's actually pretty prolific when it comes to the development of magic and understanding its limitations. Never really worked on the creation of magic—although he did create some minor, lesser spells, I suppose—but rather worked tirelessly in order to study, perfect, and experiment upon our existing set of magics.

Arcane lines are his paintbrush and he's set the canvas on fire.

For only living 120 years, his output was enormous. Most of these books were all written by Vernon himself, separately, and don't usually have their contents duplicated at all. There is a biography floating around, and a few compilation records, but for the most part...this is his life's legacy before you.

Much to go over...

{Pause}

<clap remembering; optional>

Err, oh right! The point. I'm looking for information in relation to potion efficacy. More specifically, how both water and blood properties can influence the range of a potion's length or strength. Types of water, what's added to it, such and such.

I'm doing some...investigations...of my own. [Drifting off] Y-yknow, for...the mage's guild...

Trying to maximize strength versus duration! Optimizing the process. Better resulting potions and the like.

Um. Uh...One disclaimer. Vernon's writing style is...unique. If it wasn't edited by someone else, it might truly be called something like "Make Potions Not Abysmal" or "Potion Deshittification", or something in that line of thinking. Nobody is perfect, I guess. Intensely un-academic person. It's sort of a miracle that any of this stuff was written down at all. The actual contents are pretty solid, all things considered. Just the titles that blow.

<Page flipping, books being moved; ASMR-y things>

Oh, and one more thing. Maybe don't look at the books in all black with a purple stripe on the spine. Those are usually...forbidden magic.

Shh, Shh! Yes! They have that stuff! Krier was one of maybe three people in all of history they actually let practice those sorts of things at the academy on purpose.

The man was a researcher! Maybe he could find practical applications to that horrible stuff. Or ways to counter it when people go rogue...

...N-not that they do often. Hope I haven't scared you. I think it's only happened once in the last hundred years. Some botany caster got too good at rapid growth or something along those lines. Doubt she knows much of this stuff.

{Pause}

[Dodgy] I have....tenure. So...higher access to restricted materials. Yup.

I...also was one of the few people who studied under and with Krier. Some of these are kind of directly from the source. So. That's...also the case.

Yes, it's true! I was the fifth of six. Probably the only one who stuck around in academics afterwards. Mostly out of having not gone mad. Krier was certainly a...eccentric fellow. Lots of specific quirks. [Under breath] Hard to tolerate.

There's a very rare delicacy sort of taking the capital by storm in the last say fifty years or so. It's a strange beverage called "coffee". It's made much like tea is, but with some type of hard legume instead of plant leaves. Krier spent an enormous sum of money to acquire it and drank it regularly. It has a disgusting, heavy bitter taste. I do not know what he saw in that stuff, but he claimed that it gave him extra strength like a potion would. It just gave me a headache.

He would also only dress completely in one color for a given day—and never repeat the same color in the same lunar cycle. The attention to prismatic detail was uncanny. Even internal stitching had to match. Buttons. Clasps. All of it, one solid color.

Spells were always and only to be cast from the left hand. Even from us. Didn't matter that most of us used the right, primarily. If it was something we were doing for Krier, it was left hand only.

He did have a magnificent master though. Studied under the equally freaky Corbeau Rosevault. Birds of a feather, perhaps? Taught Krier all sorts of weird magic that probably nobody else on the planet would have known. Then Krier made new derivatives...I'd assume even Rosevault was surprised by the prowess. 

[Sigh]

Like this spell combination here!

<move book around to show listener>

A three-layered ball, with a core of fire, encased in wind, encased in water. The result makes the water of the spell boil in mid-air. Who thinks of something like that? It's incredibly devastating in combat...but unsurprisingly very difficult to perform. I'm not sure I could do it.

Your book shows information about the spell Heat Metal, and its impact across different types of metals or spell ranks. Do it high enough and you might just melt the armor right off someone!

I'm telling ya, it's dense stuff. Fun reads for the curious mind.

<Page flipping>

But...nothing on potions yet.

<Listener gets a new book, flips pages; do this for awhile, then stop>

You found something?

Not quite what we're after. Darn. But it is potion related?

[Mildly, mildly stressed] A cure for love potions? In a regular access book like that? That's absurd, pass that over.

<Book is handed or slid over>

I suppose I don't have to remind you that love potions or any brain-altering arcana are extremely forbidden dark magic. Now, uhh, err...let's see... 

[Murmuring; reading bits and pieces aloud] Love potions...lame...brain chemistry...potions are just bottled spells...self counterspell repeatedly—

Counterspell repeatedly??

So he insists that just casting counterspell on himself over and over is just going to fix that? That's crazy. There's no way it could outrank the magic of a love potion. It's too strong!

<Book is closed abruptly>

T-That's enough of that. [Nervous chuckle] How unbelievably sidetracked I will be if I investigate this further! Still, very strange for reference to it to be found in a non-regulated book like this...

{Listener suggestion}

Hmm, well, you might be right. Better to have common curing knowledge than to...lock it all away! Mhm!

That's only two books down, young pupil! We have so many more to get to before the hours dwindle late! Let us move swiftly, posthaste!

<Fade out with more book sounds; optional humming. Can do a very ASMR-y section of just studying noises for immersion/relaxation>

END.