Elara’s first meeting with her mentor ended with her scrubbing down the entire laboratory, but at least this was a kind of work she knew how to do. She quickly learned to differentiate between items Mara permitted her to move and those she wasn't to touch without an explicit order. With every unfamiliar vessel, she chose to wait for instructions rather than try to prove her independence in a way that might cost her her remaining skin.
The older apprentice gradually recovered her good mood when she realized she didn't have to repeat herself. She tidied the equipment alongside Elara, occasionally tossing out a remark about her studies, material storage, or lethal mistakes a newcomer might not even recognize as dangerous.
Two hours passed before Elara noticed that a significant portion of the cluttered tables had regained their empty surfaces.
Mara set down the last beaker, inspected the room, and pointed to a bin standing near the entrance.
“Throw the rest of the garbage in there. Remember, only the yellow one. If it's not yellow, tie the bag shut and leave it for tomorrow.”
Elara looked at the bin, which came up past her chest, and slowly nodded. After everything she had seen in the Spire, she wasn't going to ask why a bin would suddenly stop being yellow before she made absolutely sure she memorized what to do when it happened.
Mara pulled out a chair and slumped into it heavily, stretching her legs out under the table.
“You have five minutes for questions. Then I’m leaving. I have an appointment and I’m not going to be late because of cleaning.”
Elara set her rag down, her mind instantly jumping to the question she had been preparing while she worked.
“How do mental strength and magic aptitude affect further studies?”
Mara didn't look surprised. After the conversation with Caldra, it wasn't hard to guess why the girl was asking about exactly that. She rested her elbow on the table, choosing her words for a moment.
“According to the textbooks, both are equally important. In practice, you need Aether to turn knowledge into a working spell. Just understanding the rules won't get you very far.”
She held her hands up, leaving a small gap between them.
“Imagine a river a hundred meters away. The Aether Motes in the environment are the water. Your mental strength determines how fast you can run to get it, and your magic aptitude determines what you carry it back in. An average apprentice has a bucket.”
She narrowed the gap between her hands and looked at Elara.
“You have a bowl. You can run fast, but you'll bring back less water every time.”
“Then I’ll just make more trips,” the girl answered almost instantly.
Mara shook her head, as if she had expected exactly that response.
“You can't compensate for everything that way. Casting spells, preparing tools, drafting magical arrays, and drawing runes all require a specific reserve. Sometimes you need two bowls or an entire bucket all at once. What will you do if your vessel simply can't hold that much?”
Elara lowered her gaze to her hands. A skeletal finger on her left hand brushed lightly against her uniform.
So I can understand exactly what needs to be done, and still lack the capacity to actually do it…
She didn't need any more metaphors to grasp the core of the explanation, though. If the limitation lay in the 'vessel' itself, she needed to know if it could be changed.
“Is there a way to turn a bowl into a bucket? Through Flesh Reforging, for example?”
Mara glanced at her left hand, but didn't linger on it for long, as if such a modification wasn't particularly interesting to her.
“Of course. It’s just that a first-rank apprentice usually can't perform or survive it safely. For the kind of reconstruction the mentor mentioned, you generally need to be at least the second rank.”
She raised both her hands. The skin in the center of her palms parted, revealing two wet, glistening orifices. Their edges moved like lips preparing to bite. Then, long red tongues slid out, stretching toward Elara.
The girl gritted her teeth and forced herself to stay put, though her left arm reflexively moved across her chest. She didn't know if Mara was just trying to scare her again or if she actually intended to touch her this time, but she had absolutely no desire to find out what would happen if those tongues made contact.
The older apprentice abruptly pulled her hands back.
“No sudden movements. We are in a laboratory.”
She said it so casually it sounded as if she had just warned Elara not to bump a beaker, completely ignoring the fact that she had just provoked the defensive reflex herself.
“I understand,” the girl replied, slowly lowering her arm. “But is there a reconstruction a first-rank apprentice can survive? I might only have these three months.”
Mara stretched and stood up from her chair.
“In that case, you’re going to have to risk your life. For a start, you can visit the Hollow Archive and look for materials meant for second-rank apprentices.”
Elara immediately moved to follow her, seeing that her time for questions was up.
“Will they let me read them?”
“Anything in the general access section can be picked up.”
Mara opened the door, then turned around and smiled in a way that completely stripped the reassurance from her answer.
“The library doesn't forbid junior apprentices from reaching for the knowledge of higher ranks. They get bored sometimes too.”
She walked out before Elara could ask exactly who she meant, the closing door leaving behind a brief, heavy echo.
Elara stood by the entrance for a moment, weighing the final piece of advice. Meditation alone seemed far too slow a path to reach the score Caldra demanded. If she had to rely on another solution, she would probably have to start with knowledge she wasn't yet ready to handle safely.
She looked at the book hovering by her left shoulder.
Risk my life… At least I won't have to do it completely blind.
She wasn't about to confuse warnings with a guarantee of survival. But compared to trying her luck with absolutely no safety net, she had something that had already saved her from taking a lethal step on multiple occasions.
The door suddenly swung open, and Mara’s face appeared in the gap.
“Just make sure everything is tidy before you leave.”
Elara flinched and immediately snapped her eyes away from the book.
“Of course.”
Mara gave the room one last visual sweep before disappearing again, this time shutting the door without further comment.
Elara waited a few breaths before moving.
There wasn't much work left: putting away a few remaining tools, throwing out the trash, and making sure the cabinets were properly closed. Pushing Mara's chair back under the desk only took a moment, as did sweeping up the debris beneath it. But when she reached the yellow bin, the girl paused.
When she lifted the lid, she saw only pitch-black darkness.
She couldn't see a bottom, walls, or any of the garbage they had thrown in earlier. The opening looked more like the entrance to a narrow shaft than the inside of a trash can standing by a door. She tipped the small dustpan over the edge, letting its contents slide inside, then quickly dropped the lid, not bothering to listen for the sound of anything hitting the bottom.
Throw it in the yellow one, close it, and walk away…
She returned to the central table, rubbing her forearm over her sleeve. While Mara had been around, the laboratory had merely felt like a place demanding caution. Now, the silence amplified every tiny rustle and the sound of her own footsteps, putting her on edge.
Lying on the counter were several parchment sheets she hadn't noticed earlier. Someone had drawn vague shapes on them, then violently crossed them out with a dense tangle of black lines, almost completely obscuring the original images. The paper had been crumpled up and smoothed out again, as if it had already been thrown away but somehow made its way back onto the table.
Elara frowned.
Were these here while we were cleaning?
She couldn't answer that, and after her experience with the meditation diagrams, she wasn't about to stare at strange drawings any longer than it took to gather them up. She carefully swept the sheets into a small bin and walked over to the trash. But when she reached for the lid, the yellow surface shifted color.
Standing in front of her was a red bin.
Elara froze with her hand halfway extended, then slowly pulled it back without touching the handle. For a moment, she just stared at the new color, making sure it wasn't a trick of the light. She had no intention of testing the container just to satisfy her curiosity.
She recalled Mara’s instruction, tied the trash bag shut, and left it under a table for the next day.
Alright, good thing she mentioned that… Let's hope the rest of the things that can kill me in here have such polite warning signs.
She moved on, checking the remaining surfaces and doors. When she reached the deepest row of cabinets, for some inexplicable reason, the meditation diagram flashed through her mind - specifically the position of the monster at the very bottom of the circle.
For a split second, the layout of the room felt exactly like that spot. It was as if by walking all the way past the tables, she had reached the point where the human silhouette ceased to look human at all.
She shook her head, irritated by her own morbid imagination, and took another step.
Her sole hit something hard.
She pulled her foot back and looked down. Her heart instantly kicked into high gear. Lying by the cabinet was a wooden doll, nearly identical to the one used during the recruitment trial.
It had tiny hands, meticulously carved clothing, and two empty hollows where eyes should be - hollows that, even with a brief glance, felt like they were staring straight at her.
Elara averted her eyes from its face, recalling Mara's orders.
The floor by the cabinets was supposed to be clear. If anything was left lying around after cleaning, she was supposed to find its proper place, put it away, and close the doors securely.
She looked at the nearest cabinet.
One of the doors was slightly ajar. Through the glass pane, she could see dozens of wooden dolls lying on top of one another in a tangled mess that could hardly be called organized. Some had their faces pressed against the glass. Others were wedged between the limbs of their companions, forming a motionless knot of pale wood.
So I found where you live… Just put you back and close the door.
She crouched down, making sure not to look into the empty eye sockets, and extended her right hand.
The moment her fingers brushed the cool, rough surface, a rustle echoed right by her shoulder.
The book darted in front of her face, springing open and flipping its pages so fast that Elara instantly froze, keeping her hand pressed against the doll. A second later, the pages settled, revealing a new entry.
May 26th, Year 314 of the Lunar Calendar.
Mara left you in the laboratory to finish cleaning, though it's hard to call the chore particularly enjoyable.
A naughty wooden doll found itself under your foot, so you decided to put it back in its place, exactly as you were ordered.
You opened the cabinet, grabbed the doll by the head, and carefully placed it inside.
You were grabbed by the head and carefully placed inside.
Lying on the bodies of your companions, you watched as the glass doors swung shut.
On the other side, Elara hummed a cheerful melody and happily skipped toward the exit.