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🕑 Added 2024-12-10 02:03:11 +0000 UTCChapter 2! Experimenting a little with release timing since I have way more free time after moving to full time writing. Is later better for most of you? Is earlier?
Also, talking with my editor and others, apparently Soulbound Contractor is a better title, so we're going with that as final series title.
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There was an interesting dichotomy to Dryth’s own thoughts as he waited patiently for his turn. His class of students waiting for their Reveal weren’t near the front thanks to whatever system the Association used to arrange the order people arrived. There were at least one hundred and fifty other students waiting for their chance to go into one of the rooms with a mage in it, to Reveal their Soul Card and learn their destined path. That was as least five times as many people as Dryth generally saw in a day and the larger ballroom like room where the lines of students snaked back and forth might have had a quarter of the number of people his entire home village had! There was a huge crowd of students there, and even as they tried to be quiet the roar of hundreds of whispers filled the air with noise.
Instead of there being one line that split at the end, with the person at the front going into whichever room opened up first, there were five distinct lines, one for each room. It seemed inefficient to Dryth at a glance, and having stood in line for the better part of an hour slowly making his way a handful of steps forward at a time, he knew it was. He was second line over from the left and while it wasn’t moving as glacially as the one all the way to the left, it wasn’t moving nearly as quickly as the line second from the right either. The actual process of one’s Reveal had never been explained to Dryth in anything other than the vaguest terms. He assumed it was going to be similar to his first flash, where a moment of clarity had suddenly hit him and he’d been able to see the borders of his Soul Card, but however it worked some people obviously took longer than others.
He didn’t have a way to accurately time it, he didn’t have a watch on him, he didn’t own a watch although he’d soon a few that belonged to some of the wealthier kids at school, but the line he was in moved forward roughly every five minutes, and the center and far right lines were keeping pace. The fastest lane was going at about half that speed while the longest line was taking at least twice as long. Each line was taking the same amount of time between each time they moved forward, which meant it couldn’t be something the students were doing. That meant it had to be one of the mages assisting the process, whatever that actually meant. One was better than all the others at whatever they were doing, three were around the same level, presumably around average, and one was much worse than average. Why would the Association use someone that was so much slower than their peers at this? And more interestingly, why were they still evenly dividing each class into the lines like they had been before the massive imbalance built up? The slowest line was almost a third of the length again of all the others when the last class of students were shown in and Director Treegold, who’d accompanied the students to the ballrooom, still split them all evenly, one to each line in order.
It was a great distraction to theorize and play with ideas of why the Association was doing such weird behavior and Dryth came up with a buttload of strange and funny theories as he zoned out. From the more banal ideas of different mages needing to work this job for some reason, from requirements to gaining cards from it somehow, this being a punishment job and none of the mages were actual volunteers, and that it was a particularly annoying job so they were stuck with whoever decided to volunteer thus leaving them with one person who was really slow, to more wild thoughts, like the Association using some kind of mental magic to split the classes into specific spots as they walked through the door into the room so they ended up in certain lines, thus controlling who was in the slow line because the Association wanted them there because they were doing something weird to those students!
Dryth was trying to figure out which of the many ridiculous options he’d thought of for what they were doing to those students he “believed” when he realized he was only a few people from the front of the line. “Deciding’ then and there the Association was sacrificing potential mages to turn their Soul Cards into ridiculously overpowered standard cards, he made sure to pay attention to the students in front of him as they made it to the front. Some of them were stoic and just waiting for the worker at the front to direct them into the room, but others were visibly nervous.
“What do we do when we get in there?” One of them asked nervously as they made it up to the worker, which was exactly what Dryth was waiting for.
“Don’t worry about it,” The worker, who was dressed in robes similar to Director Treegold’s but with less finery involved, reassured them. “The mage assisting you today will go over everything with you. As long as you follow their instructions you’ll be fine.”
“All, alright.” The student stammered. They nervously fidgeted until the worker waved them forward.
Unfortunately no one else asked any questions that Dryth wanted answers to, and he wasn’t going to stand out in any way that he could help it, even if that meant not asking questions. Nothing he wanted to know was important enough to ask about, and several of the questions would likely draw extra attention to him. Such as “Why is that one line going so slow?” and “What are you doing to the students in there? Are you harvesting their life force to make potions of immortality?” Really, as funny as it would be to act like the horror stories his older siblings had told him about mages when he was younger might actually be true, being noticeable wasn’t what Dryth wanted right then. He especially didn’t want to stand out for looking unintelligent or for telling really insensitive jokes, the former of which was an outcome of the latter.
Once he made it to the front of the line he politely greeted the worker and then stared at the door in front of him for five or so minutes. He didn’t really feel any anxiety or worries, which he was sure made him different for any of his peers there today. He knew most if not all of them had hopes and dreams, desires to get a specific Class or anything that would make it easier for them to get or use a specific card, one that let them be like some hero in a story or to live up to a family legacy. Dryth did not care at all. What was there to worry about or to hope for? He’d already gotten what he wanted most, a Soul Card with a blue border. He was going to be able to use magic, which ensured a high paying job that would let him live anywhere he wanted, who cared what specific kind it was going to be.
“Alright, go on ahead.” The worker told him, responding to some unknown signal that told them the room was ready.
Dryth nodded and walked forward, fighting desperately to keep a grin from fighting its way onto his face as he opened the door and stepped through.
“Shut that behind you, please.” A voice called out before he was halfway inside.
He did as they asked without responding before looking up. There were two people sitting at a table in the center of the small room, which an empty chair on the opposite side from them. One was a stern looking older man in the now-familiar robes of someone who worked directly for the Association and the other was a woman of indeterminate age wearing a think shirt. She had short, dark hair that looked like it was tinged with a deep blue color and could have been anywhere from her thirties to a very impressive looking fifties.
“Go ahead and take your seat.” The woman said. She waited until he had before continuing. “I’m mage Annyerie, and I’ll be assisting you in your Reveal today. Beside me is mage Bolem, from the Records Department of the Association. He’ll be recording your Soul Card and your unique facet so that the proper licensing tests and achievements can be selected for you in the future. Are you aware of how the process works?”
“Not in any level of detail.” Dryth answered, “You’re going to help me access my soul so I can Reveal my Soul Card and see what my Class is. I’m not really sure what you mean by ‘unique facet’ though?”
“Sorry, I specialize in gem related magics, so I tend to think of things in those terms.” She chuckled. “I know some regions have specific names for it, but I’m talking about your silver text. The bit of your Soul Card description that’s unique to just you.”
“Oh, yes. Our teachers just called it silver text, they didn’t have any name for it. We also didn’t talk to much about it because it’s very personal…?”
Dryth noted mage Bolem making a quick annoyed face before his expression smoothed back out.
“It is, and outside of verified Association record-keepers like mage Bolem or individuals that have been sworn to secrecy like myself as part of volunteering to help today, I wouldn’t tell anyone that you don’t trust about it. It is required as part of your Reveal process though. Don’t worry!” She added when Dryth failed to hold his own expression at bay. “Your information will be kept quite secure in official Association vaults, and it can only be accessed by trusted individuals on official business.”
Internally Dryth was thankful that she’d interpreted his look as one of worry, instead of the annoyance and exasperation he was actually felling. How controlling did they need to be of mages around here? It was something he’d noticed the more he’d studied ahead at school. The teachers got really annoyed that he’d done his best to be successful and study ahead. They’d acted like something about it was bad. No one had ever really explained why people were uncomfortable around mages to Dryth. His family hadn’t talked about it much when he was younger and when they’d learned that he was going to be a mage they’d all clammed up about it, which had only made the ostrization he felt from his own siblings worse. The culture of the kingdom simultaneously respected people with blue cards and held them at a distance from Dryth’s limited experience, although Dryth had never met someone that was actively hostile. The fact that the part of the government in charge of mages acted similarly was a telling point.
Still even if they probably weren’t representatives of some tyrannical system designed to work him to the bone didn’t mean that “Hey, we’re about to help you discover a secret part of your own soul that you shouldn’t tell strangers about, but you have to tell the two of us the exact details of it irregardless of the fact that we’re strangers, because the government says so!” was still annoying as all get out.
“Alright,” Drythe replied with a nod. “How do we do this?”
Mage Annyerie smiled, “Well first of all you take my hands.” She held both of hers out and waiting for hims to grasp them. “I’m going to delve into my soul, the act of going to my Soul Card where I can see it and manage my deck. I’ll be doing so as slowly and as obviously as I can, and as a future mage right at the age of adulthood you should be able to follow along. All you need to do is sense what I’m doing and do the same thing.”
“Okay…”
She closed her eyes, so Dryth copied her and tried to feel whatever it was she was doing. How exactly, was he supposed to feel her “going into her soul”? What were the mechanics behind that? Additionally, how could he feel her doing something like that? Did his age and Soul Card unlock some kind of passive ability in him or something?
In the middle mentally of bitching at the lack of explanations Dryth did feel something. It was like watching someone else turn themselves inside and look at their insides without moving at all. Which was freaky on several levels the least of which being his eyes were closed and he couldn’t see anything right then. “Watching” the mage repeat the motion over and again led to him feeling something inside himself that was similar to the “her” he could “see” moving like that. There was a feeling of “him”, of who he was faintly radiating out. Copying her, he tried to look in at it and see the inside of it.
In an instant he found himself standing in front of a different table, in a different room, with a single card lying face down in front of him.
