After the End: Serenity

As Serenity headed into the cemetery, he realized that things had been so busy he’d never had a chance to actually plan what he was going to teach. He’d have to come up with it on the fly.

There were already people gathering around the cemetery as he pulled the sign that said TRIAL DAY - NO CLASSES off the tree. He’d need to get something more permanent made.

“Okay everyone, come on over. If you’re here to learn magic, you’re in the right place. If you’re here to talk to me about yesterday’s Trials, please don’t. I’ll be heading over to the Trial area after lunch; we’ll figure it out then.“

There was a wave of questions. Serenity let it wash over himself, not really listening. He took the opportunity to look over the crowd. It was only twenty people, but it seemed like more. Fourteen of them had Death affinity. For a moment, he was grateful for the accident with the Affinity stone; he could have figured out who had the affinity - and how strongly - using his own Death affinity, but this was much easier.

Eventually he decided he’d had enough, gathered his Energy affinity, compressed it into lightning, and grounded it into the dirt below himself.

CRACK

There was a small smoking hole where the energy hit, but not much damage; he hadn’t put much energy into it. An electrical discharge in air was always loud, though, so at least he had everyone’s attention.

“Now that I have your attention. Those of you who don’t have Death affinity unlocked, please go stand by the tree. Those of you who do, we’re heading a little deeper into the graveyard. As I said at dinner a couple nights ago, Necromancy is about control. All magic is, because all magic is dangerous without control. So the first thing we’re going to do is find out what control is.” He was only about ten feet into the graveyard, but that was plenty for this.

Serenity reached into the ground for bone fragments. Small bones would also work. Since the area was intended for training Death mages, it had far more bones than most real cemeteries would, unless they’d been in use for centuries, and below the cemetery was an ossuary. There were plenty of bones, and they all had a hint of Death affinity.

He pulled the small bones to the surface and arranged them in a small circle around where he was standing. He then made them rise into the air, spin, and move in complicated patterns for a minute - carefully controlling them with his Affinity rather than his Concept. He set them on the ground. “I want each of you to pick a bone. See if you can get it to move with your Death affinity. This will give you practice connecting to your affinity. Once you get it to move, try to get it to move the way you want it to. I promise it’s harder than it looks.”

The exercise would take even the more advanced students some time, unless they’d already figured it out. The easiest way was a matter of infusing the bone with Death affinity, then moving the affinity rather than the bone. He’d help anyone who couldn’t figure it out, but letting them experiment first might let them figure out some interesting options. Serenity knew several, and they’d all come in handy at one point or another.

Serenity walked over to the group standing by the tree. There were seven people there, one of whom did have Death affinity. “Why are you here? Do you want to gain a Death affinity, or is there another reason?” He looked first at the man to his left.

He was expecting there to be more than one reason, so he’d have to ask each of them.

The man looked him straight on and said “I want to learn Death magic.”

He wasn’t going to ask why until he had a thought. “You aren’t trying to bring someone back from the dead, are you?” That was one of the reasons he’d started with Death affinity, after all.

The reaction of two of them told him he’d guessed correctly. “Look, there are six ways I know of to bring someone back from the dead, and none of them use Death affinity. It’s exactly what you don’t want to use, to actually bring someone back. You can raise a corpse with it that will look real if you’re good enough, but it’s not the person. It’s a puppet.”

He thought for a moment. “The affinities needed for it are pretty esoteric if you want to do it yourself. If you really want a mage path, see if you can pick up information about magic itself rather than any particular affinity. You’ll need that. Even if your path takes you away from magic, there are ways. No matter what it’s a long ways off. Decades, at least. All of that said, if you still want to learn Death affinity, I’ll teach it. There’s a lot it can do. It just can’t bring back the dead in a way you’d want.”

Serenity looked over at the other man who’d reacted to the notion of bringing someone back to life. “You as well?”

The man just nodded.

There were three women and an elderly man left. The elderly man was the one with a Death Affinity, so Serenity looked at the black-haired woman next. She was neither young nor old, but had a defiant look on her face.

“I want to learn all types of magic. I don’t want to specialize. And especially not in elemental magic!”

Serenity smiled. “Ambitious. I like it. We can talk about possible paths sometime later if you want.”

The next lady was dressed in black. She was blunt. “I’ve always wanted Death magic. That’s all there is to it.”

Serenity could respect that.

The last woman didn’t seem to want to look at him. She didn’t say anything, so he gently asked “Why are you here?”

“I-I-” She closed her eyes and swallowed, then seemed to spit out her thoughts on one long exhale. “I went to the mages and asked about magic but all they wanted to teach was Affinity stuff. I want to learn runes. I talked to some lady at the weapons place and she said I should come talk to you.” She took a big breath. “She was the only nice one, everyone else said I was weak and silly.”

Serenity could only think of one person at “the weapons place” that would send someone to him to learn runic magic. It was good to hear that Kerr was kind to others and not only the potential powers.

He concentrated and found that while the woman’s affinities were weak, she had quite a few of them. “Runes does look like a good choice for you. It’d be hard to get your affinities up to the point where direct casting would be better. You should know that runic magic is slow - so slow that it’s considered a crafting profession, almost like Enchanting, more than a true magical combat Path, although a good rune-mage can be the equal of others.”

“N-no, that sounds g-good. I’m g-going to fight with my axe, magic is for everything else.” The woman still hadn’t looked at him.

“All right then. I’m going to need you to come back later, we’ll need a quiet place to talk about runes. How does after dinner sound? We’ll have about an hour before it gets too dark.” Not that Serenity actually cared about the dark.

Speaking of which, how was he seeing? It hadn’t occurred to him to check.

Serenity shook off the distraction and turned to the elderly gentleman. He had Death affinity, yes, but there was something else familiar about him. He resonated with Serenity’s Concept of Death. Serenity suddenly had an idea of what was going on, but he waited for the man to speak. It wasn’t polite to pry, after all.

“I was dying when it happened, you know. When all this -” The old man waved at their surroundings, “- started. I have questions, and I think you may have answers.” The old man was being cautious, which seemed reasonable to Serenity. You never knew how the living would react.

“I should have time tonight, around sunset. Whenever I get finished talking to her,” Serenity indicated the nervous lady as she walked away from the group, “about runic magic. I doubt being out after dark will bother you. Until then, maybe practice with the others who have Death affinity? It should be useful.”

“See you then.” The man headed towards the others in the graveyard.

Serenity looked at the four who wanted to unlock Death affinity. The two who wanted to return loved ones to life - at least, he hoped that was the reason - were still there. He released his limits on his Concept of Death and allowed it to swirl around him. It could interfere with people trying to learn control, but would be helpful to people trying to pick up an Affinity. Not as helpful as an Aspect, but - he would prefer to leave his Death Aspect locked as long as possible - partly because it would influence his Path and partly because he was concerned that unlocking it would kill him. “So. Death affinity. There are several ways to unlock an affinity. The first - and easiest - is to have it be something that already fits you. That’s what affinity stones do.”

“The second is to carefully fit yourself to the affinity, usually starting with the lowest tier relative. Death is one of the strong affinities for humans, so many can start at the higher tier, but some are better off building up to it.”

“The third way is to force the affinity onto yourself. That has the potential to have side effects, and with the Death affinity in particular, one of the common side effects is dying.” True death was actually a less common side effect than one of several forms of living death - of becoming an undead. Serenity had a lot of experience with that, but he had generally been trying to make undead. To some extent, his Concept would be forcing the affinity on the people near him - but in a weak enough way that it would avoid the worst side effects.

“Therefore, we’re going to start with the second method. What are things that are lesser forms of death? To some extent, this is personal; there are dozens of lesser affinities that can become a Death affinity. Most of them can also fit at least one other higher Affinity, so don’t be afraid if it overlaps a bit.” He looked at the group and waited for their answers.