Lore | Magic in Astalor

The student’s question was simple. The answer was not.

“How does magic work?” she asked, quill poised above a blank page, as if the answer could fit in a single line.

Sage Harren rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had taught this course for eleven years. The question came every term, from some bright-eyed first-year who believed the world had clean edges.

“Close your notebook,” he said. “You won’t need it.”

She blinked. “But the examination—”

“Won’t ask you how magic works. It will ask you what the Academy claims about how magic works. Those are different questions.”

The Elemental Foundations

He stood and crossed to the blackboard, where a faded diagram showed four symbols arranged in a square: water, fire, earth, air.

“The official teaching is this: every mage commands one element. Some grasp a related element with effort. Opposites remain out of reach. No mage commands both water and fire, or earth and air.” He tapped the diagram. “Clean. Symmetrical. Easy to teach.”

A boy near the window raised his hand without waiting to be called. “My grandmother was a hedge-mage in the eastern provinces. She said the village healer could pull water from a well and light a hearth. Same woman.”

The class stirred. Harren studied the boy for a long moment.

“There are accounts, mostly from before the Second Age, that describe exactly that. Mages wielding opposed elements simultaneously. The Academy classifies those accounts as folklore.” He turned back to the blackboard. “Your grandmother’s village would likely agree. The Academy would not. The records from that period are incomplete, and what survives is often contradictory.”

“But did she—”

“I wasn’t there. Neither was the Academy. Next topic.”

The first student’s quill hovered, uncertain.

The Art of Spellcasting

“What the Academy does agree on is this: casting requires concentration, precise intonation, and something most people lack.” He held up a hand, cutting off the question he could see forming. “No, I don’t know what that something is. The texts call it aptitude, gift, curse, and infection, depending on who wrote them and when.”

“Casting a spell is no simple feat. Mages must concentrate their minds, drawing intricate magical runes in their thoughts while uttering the incantations with precise timing and intonation. Even the slightest mistake can have disastrous consequences, making the practice of magic a high-risk endeavor.”

He gestured at the quoted passage, carved into the lecture hall’s stone lintel. “That has been there since the Academy was founded. Note what it doesn’t say: why mistakes are dangerous. Whether the danger comes from the spell itself, from the caster’s body, or from something external that the spell attracts.”

He flicked two fingers toward a candle on the lectern. The wick caught. A small demonstration, the kind he’d done a thousand times.

The flame burned blue.

Harren’s hand dropped. He stared at the candle for a beat too long, then pinched the wick dead between his fingers.

“Three schools of thought on the source of risk. No consensus. Next question.”

No one mentioned the color. If any of them had noticed, they kept it to themselves.

Nature’s Role in Magic

A hand rose from the back. “The components, sir. The stones.”

“Ah.” Harren’s expression shifted. “The one thing everyone agrees on. Herbs and extracts enhance spellwork. But stones unlock a mage’s full potential. They say.”

He pulled a small pouch from his belt and emptied it onto the lectern. Three dull pebbles. Nothing remarkable to look at.

“Unworked stones. Most are useless. A precious few contain what we need. Use one, and it crumbles. Gone.”

He picked up the nearest pebble to hold it up for the class. Then stopped. His fingers tightened around it, briefly, and something shifted behind his eyes. He set it back down with the others and wiped his palm against his robe.

“However, they are not easy to come by. The unworked stones must be closely examined, and only a precious few contain the power needed to cast spells. Once a suitable stone is found, it can only be used once before its power is exhausted, crumbling into dust or shattering into useless fragments.”

“This scarcity shapes everything.” His voice was steady again. “Some regions overflow with certain types of magic because the right stones are plentiful there. Other regions have none. Guilds fight over deposits the way armies fight over bridges.” He swept the pebbles back into the pouch without touching that first one directly. Used the fabric to scoop it. “Control the stones, control the mages. That much has always been true.”

Divine Favor and Magic

“There is, supposedly, another path.” His voice flattened. “The favor of the gods. Devotion. Prayer. The temples claim their blessings amplify magical ability.”

He let the silence stretch.

“I have seen things I cannot explain through elemental theory alone. I have also seen priests take credit for coincidence. Draw your own conclusions.”

The Price of Power

“As mages grow in skill, casting becomes easier. That part is well documented. What is less discussed is the cost.” He lowered his voice, not for drama but from habit. Some topics attracted the wrong kind of attention.

“Overuse leads to exhaustion. Prolonged overuse leads to worse. The senior texts describe madness, seizures, death. They also describe changes that don’t fit neatly into any of those categories.”

He glanced at his right palm. Flexed it once, as if checking. Then continued.

“The Academy doesn’t encourage students to ask what those changes look like. I’d suggest you ask anyway. Quietly.”

The Eight Schools

“The Academy recognizes eight schools. Whether there are truly eight, or whether we’ve simply agreed to stop counting, is a question better asked after you graduate.”

1. Hydromancy (Water): Healing, purification, manipulation of liquids.
2. Ignimancy (Fire): Combat magic, energy manipulation, purification through flame.
3. Geomancy (Earth): Protection, physical enhancement, manipulation of stone and plant life.
4. Ventomancy (Air): Weather, speed, manipulation of gases.
5. Necromancy: Communication with spirits, manipulation of life force, reanimation. The temples call it forbidden. The Academy calls it restricted. The difference is political.
6. Omencraft: Scrying, prophecy, knowledge from sources the practitioners refuse to name.
7. Evocation: Summoning, conjuration, teleportation. Poorly understood even by its masters.
8. Miragery: False sensory experiences, perception manipulation. Some scholars argue this isn’t magic at all, but a form of madness that happens to be useful.

“Each path carries its own costs. The choice shapes the mage as much as the mage shapes the magic. Or so we believe.”

He looked out at the class. Thirty faces, most of them still expecting clean answers.

“In Astalor, magic is not a tool you pick up and set down. It is a weight. Some carry it well. Some do not.” He gathered his notes, then paused. His gaze found the first student, the one who’d asked how magic works.

“If your notebook is open, close it.”

It was.

She did.

“Class dismissed.”

The preceding lecture is attributed to Sage Harren of the Academy’s Third Circle. His tenure ended abruptly three years later under circumstances the records describe only as “administrative leave.” His students were reassigned. His notes were archived. Most of what he taught aligned with official doctrine.

Most.

A pouch containing three unworked stones was found in his lectern after his departure. Two were inert. The disposition of the third is not recorded.

End of Lore 1 — continues in Lore 2: Nothingness and the Second Sun