In the end, Elara secured the job for the third stage of corpse processing. The final material she had to extract under Caldra’s supervision was the maid’s larynx.
When she sealed it inside a small container, her fingers lingered on the lid for a moment as she fought not to remember the girl’s voice.
Only a sharp order from her mentor prompted her to push the box aside and tidy the workstation before going over the rest of her duties.
Along with the job, she was issued a long leather protective coat that covered her from neck to boots.
It quickly grew stifling beneath the heavy hide, but one look at the grime left behind from the initial inspection stopped any complaints; the leather was easy to wipe down, and at least she wouldn't have to wonder with every movement what had just splattered onto her clothes.
Caldra set her working hours from three to seven in the afternoon and repeatedly stressed that nothing was to leave the Pale Ossuary.
The ban applied to harvested materials and bodily remains alike, regardless of whether Elara deemed them useful, harmless, or utterly worthless.
Nor was she to visit the fifteenth-floor laboratory anymore; at her current stage, there was little she could do there and even less she could understand.
Three points a month was the base wage, but the mentor clearly hoped the prospect of bonuses would push her new worker toward a more thorough examination.
After witnessing her performance during the trial, Caldra had evidently decided that Elara’s talents might yield greater returns than initially anticipated.
For a novice initiate, the terms were remarkably generous. Even though newcomers were immediately titled first-rank apprentices, only mastering the foundational curriculum truly prepared them for the role.
Until then, they were left scraping by on modest rewards from monthly evaluations and whatever scraps of work mentors deigned to throw to students who had yet to prove their worth.
Noxveil Spire might loom over the realm with countless chambers, but suitable assignments for greenhorns were scarce.
Safer tasks typically yielded one to three points a month, whereas hazardous duties offered anywhere from four to seven.
With the latter, even a seasoned first-rank apprentice risked death, and without reliable self-preservation, higher pay was hardly an alluring prospect.
Elara’s assignment was not entirely risk-free either, though someone else handled the worst of it beforehand.
The first stage belonged to a second-rank apprentice, tasked with identifying and, where possible, neutralizing lingering hazards tied to the corpses. The body then passed to an experienced first-rank apprentice armed with basic magical theory and tier-zero spells to defend herself while extracting prime materials.
Elara’s job was to sift through whatever was left after those two were done.
Lower risk meant lower base pay, but with efficiency matching today’s run, she could rake in as many as six points a month. Not long ago, she had agonized over scrounging up enough crystals to borrow a single volume; now, she had uncovered a knack someone was willing to pay good coin for.
It didn’t make staring at familiar faces on the slab any easier, but it gave her a compelling reason to return tomorrow.
Caldra still couldn't comprehend how a girl with such abysmal sensitivity to Darkness could pinpoint anomalies in cadavers with pinpoint accuracy. Her perception of darkness motes was barely passable, yet over dead flesh, she caught details she had no business discerning without formal training.
The mentor ultimately reasoned it was likely an innate sensitivity to spiritual entities.
From that assessment, Elara gathered mainly that she possessed a bizarre knack for perceiving spirits.
I’d rather have a knack for hoarding Aether, but if this pays the bills, I won't complain.
She couldn't explain why her meditation conjured those extra visual cues, but she didn't need the complete answer to capitalize on it.
She simply had to keep in mind that a few successful attempts didn't equate to mastering the method. At the earliest opportunity, she planned to consult Kelira, who might have observed something similar or at least knew whether distinct diagrams yielded different effects.
Perhaps they varied in meditative speed, and the choice of illustration carried far more weight than she realized?
As a fresh student, she didn't even know which questions she ought to be asking, while the mentors and senior apprentices certainly didn't consider sharing insights an obligation simply because someone stood nearby.
That afternoon, however, Caldra proved surprisingly communicative. Pleased to have filled the third station, she spared Elara some time, walking her through the arrangement of supplies and offering several practical study tips.
In the process, the mentor confirmed that the earlier results were no fluke: Elara grasped rune theory quickly, traced their profiles accurately, and slipped into meditative focus with ease.
Even when reviewing Veyl Script, she demonstrated a rapid retention that prompted Caldra to pose follow-up questions.
The girl answered cautiously yet adeptly enough that the mentor's perfunctory interest briefly bloomed into a genuine desire to instruct.
With such memory and mental fortitude, she could have excelled in almost any mundane craft.
Yet the path to becoming a Magistra demanded more, and her inability to accumulate and harness Aether meant those sharp qualities would likely only serve someone who chose to exploit her.
In Caldra’s eyes, she resembled a finely crafted instrument whose core mechanism was fatally flawed.
Only an extraordinary twist of fate or a flawless Flesh Reforging might alter that trajectory.
Except modifications potent enough to overcome such a hurdle killed even second-rank apprentices, and a novice's odds were, in Caldra's estimate, practically nonexistent.
The mentor’s enthusiasm waned as quickly as it had surfaced. Wrapping up her explanations, she headed for the door, leaving Elara by the tidied station.
“You finish at seven, and you are to vacate the second floor before eight,” she reminded her, pausing at the threshold. “Head straight back to the Glass Wing and don't loiter around this part of the Spire after dark.”
Elara gave her word, watched the mentor depart, and turned back to the conveyor.
While Caldra had been present, focusing on orders had been simple enough, but now the silence of the room settled over her with suffocating weight. Another body might be waiting behind the black leather curtain, and she alone had to decide when to draw it in.
For nearly a minute, her hand hovered above the lever as she reasoned that stalling changed nothing. Finally, she gripped the handle and pulled firmly, taking a step back as the mechanism groaned to life with a loud clatter.
The belt rolled forward for a few seconds, but nothing emerged from beneath the curtain.
Elara paused, eyed the empty surface before her, and engaged the lever again, wondering if she had mismanaged the sequence.
When the second attempt yielded nothing, dread crept in that she had jammed the mechanism on her very first day.
Before she could try a third time, a woman’s voice called out from behind the black leather strips.
“Stop pulling. That’s all for today.”
“Understood,” she answered immediately, dropping her hand from the lever.
“Watch the lamp above the opening. When it glows white, another body is ready.”
Elara looked up and only then caught sight of a small lamp, similar to the sconces along the walls. While the others cast bright white light, this one flickered with a faint, yellowish flame that seemed on the verge of dying out from a distance.
“Thank you for clarifying,” she said toward the curtain, but received no reply.
Caldra hadn't mentioned the signal, likely because she rarely managed the daily operation of the conveyor herself and had overlooked a detail obvious to veteran staff.
Elara committed the lamp’s location to memory, verified that the station was secured, and readied herself to leave. With no more duties to attend to, she had no desire to linger in the company of that sealed chest.
Near the end of the corridor, she passed the same massive woman sitting in near-total stillness. For a second, thoughts of cadavers flashed through her mind again, but catching the faint flare of nostrils, she decided she had done enough checking for breathing pulses for one day.
Compared to the previous night, this evening unfolded remarkably quietly.
Elara returned to her quarters under her own power, and the knowledge that she had secured paid labor allowed her, at least for a while, to stop dwelling on the faces she had seen upon the belt.
***
The following day, before classes commenced, Elara sought out Kelira and took a seat beside her, waiting until the girl looked up from her notes.
“I already have what I owe you for those ten crystals,” she announced quietly.
Kelira immediately extended her left hand between them, palm up.
“Then hand it over before you find something else to blow it on.”
“Would you prefer ten crystals or one point?”
The outstretched hand froze, and Kelira’s eyes widened with sudden interest.
“You found a job?”
Elara nodded, prompting the red-haired girl to rest her chin on her hand with an aggrieved sigh, as if pondering some cosmic unfairness.
“My mentor mentioned we could earn points through tower duties outside evaluations, too, but she won't let me look for anything. She says I should focus on my studies and not waste time on side tasks, so I haven't earned a single point yet.”
Because you can pass evaluations simply by studying.
I have to find a way to survive long enough to see the next one.
Elara felt a fleeting prick of envy, but dismissed it before it could seep into her voice.
After all, Kelira wasn't responsible for the disparity in their aptitudes, and without those borrowed crystals, she wouldn't even have had the volume she had spent all night transcribing.
“So, which do you want?”
“The point, obviously!” Kelira leaned in with such vigor their foreheads nearly knocked together. “Damn it, I haven't even had one credited to my name yet.”
Points couldn't be handed off like coins or crystals, however, so they agreed to visit the registry office adjoining the Hollow Archive on the Ash Wing’s ninth floor later.
Only there could a point be officially transferred to Kelira’s account to settle the debt.
Class soon got underway, though Melyss Veyron failed to appear for meditation.
Substituting in her place was an adult second-rank apprentice with an aloof demeanor and a neatly fastened robe tailored snug across a full bust. She rattled off a few pointers, verified that the students jotted them down, then took her seat at the lectern and slipped into meditation herself.
One girl ventured forward with a crystal ready to pay for a query, but the instructor opened her eyes and leveled a glare that sent the student scurrying back to her bench in silence.
Following that silent reprimand, no one else dared interrupt, and the rest of the period devolved into self-guided practice.
At first, the hall was quiet save for the rustle of turning pages, but small clusters gradually formed around individual desks. Whispers swelled into hushed discussions as students cross-checked notes, trying to decipher parts of the material the substitute had refused to elaborate on.
Kelira remained at Elara’s side, hunched over her volume. Glancing down at the grotesque figure on her own page, Elara recalled the question that had occurred to her while handling the corpses.
“Kelira, which diagram do you use for meditation?”
“The one with the blooming garden on page three,” she replied, sliding a finger between the leaves to display the illustration.
“Can you meditate without the crystal sphere yet?”
Kelira glanced up from her book, openly startled by the question.
“Not yet. My mentor said that meditating without a sphere requires mental strength around the level of a second-rank apprentice.” She paused, eyeing Elara with keener focus. “Can you?”
“Not fully,” Elara replied, shaking her head. “I just drift into this hazy state, like hovering between sleep and waking. I can't absorb Aether Motes like that, but it settles my mind.”
She said nothing of the strange visions or the luminescent sheen that had earned her a job.
She understood far too little herself to lay out the details, especially in a hall crowded with students.
“Still impressive,” Kelira remarked, flashing a thumbs-up. “When I try without the sphere, I just see a knot of lines, and within seconds I lose track of what I was even focusing on.”
She shifted closer, peering at Elara’s open manual, her attention drifting from points to the illustration.
“Which one are you using? Do you think the diagram affects meditation speed?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you. I’m using the one on page seventeen, where a human figure gradually transforms into a monster, then returns to its original shape.”
Kelira frowned, dragged her own manual closer, and began flipping through the pages. Elara waited for her to locate it, but the girl halted, checked the page number, and peered once more at the book before Elara.
“Did we receive different editions?” she asked at last, nudging her copy over so Elara could see. “I don't have that page at all.”