Melody of Mana

I had gone to bed early after being woken up on my day off. This was not due to some contrition on my part, nor tiredness from lack of sleep. No, I was angry, I really, truly hated being awoken when there was no point to it. I even tied a string around my wrist so that I would remember when I inevitably woke up at early o'clock.

Upon my return to the world of the awake I looked about. Eleanor hadn't stirred yet and so I hummed a few different spells into existence. First came a bubble of silence and darkness around her, then another bubble of silence around our room. Now safe to act I retrieved my flute from it's place amongst my things and went to stand in the middle of the room. On a whim I put up a bright ball of light in the middle of the room, just for good measure.

I dropped all of the protections from light and sound around her and launched into a flute variation of the bugle wake up call. I'm quite sure that the influx of sensation was jarring, to say the least. Eleanor nearly jumped straight out of bed.

"Good morning Eleanor!" I cheerily chirped.

"What are you thinking?!" She nearly screamed.

"That I prefer not to be awoken on my days off. Shall we continue bothering each other's sleep or would you like to call a truce?"

"And you woke everyone up for that?"

"Only you."

"That was very loud Alana. You certainly woke everyone up."

"There is a bubble of silence around the room."

I could see the twitch in her eye. "I see."

"So, do you wish to continue our fighting? Or can we come to some understanding?"

"I believe you already had an understanding with Bishop Theodore did you not?"

"Certainly, that I would allow you to be my guardian until such time as I go to school. That does not mean that you and I have to get along though. It will be easier for both of us if we do, so I would prefer to."

"You are completely reasonable and unreasonable at the same time."

"Thanks?"

"Not a compliment. Very well, what do we need to do to not be at each other's throats for the rest of this year."

"Let's start with not waking each other up for no decent reason."

"It is important that you keep a schedule Alana."

"I do, you also need to accept that I can, mostly, take care of myself. There are times when I may need help, and if I do I'll come to you, but for just going about my day... I can do that without you being all over me."

"For some things you certainly are, but you have some very concerning habits and situations young lady, and you need to accept that I need to keep an eye on you because of those."

"Like what?"

"Let's start with your boyfriend. You're very young to be in so serious..."

"Gonna stop you there. Dras isn't my boyfriend, he is a friend. I'm also not having sex with him, and don't plan to. You can accept that, or you can not, but it is the truth."

She took a few seconds to stare at me. "I find it hard to believe, but you don't look like you're lying. We'll put that to the side for the time being then. I'm also concerned about your habits of preparing for the future, and your finances. You have a good amount of earning potential even at your age and I want to make sure you're not making a mess of it."

"I'll go over my savings and stuff with you after work if you're that concerned about it. As for standard winter prep, I've already told you that most of it just doesn't matter to me. I can make up for the most important parts with magic."

"Your magic helps you a lot, but you need something to fall back on in case you end up having to use lots of mana on other things. I agree that you don't need the same preparation that most do, but you should have at the very least some things set back just in case. That is the very basics."

She seemed exasperated, but actually concerned about it. "Fine, on my next day off I'll get some extra stuff just in case. I think it's a waste though."

"You need to think about the things you buy. What will you do when you have a family if you're not thinking about that? You may be fine, but what about your children, or husband? Will they?"

This world was one in which it was pretty much taken as a given that i would, at some point settle down and have a family. Few were those who never did, and as a spellcaster there was even more pressure to make lots more little spellcasters. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about that, but I could see myself at some point wanting kids.

"Those are valid concerns. I'll consider it."

"At least I don't have to worry about your cleaning. You do that rather well for someone your age."

"Yeah, I made a spell for that awhile ago. I don't use it on clothes, but for the floor and stuff it works fairly well."

She sighed. "Don't want to do anything the old fashioned way I see?"

"I do not like assigning myself more work than I have to do. If I have a resource, I will use it."

"Fine, well, let's get breakfast then. No point trying to go back to sleep now."

That afternoon I had another visitor in the form of my new friend Kala. She strode in just after noontime with my folded up dress for me.

"I see you escaped the other priests." I gave her a smile as she handed it over.

"It was a grueling affair, but eventually they decided I wasn't actually in the wrong. I still had to go over everything about a dozen times though, and got chewed out for not sending word that I was okay when I had the option."

"Boo on responsibility."

She snorted. "Some things we must be responsible for, but there are others where I think we could relax just a hair." Her fingers held up in front of her face to show a small bit.

We found a booth and ordered a bit of food. "So what do you lot do at the temple all the time."

"Depends, there's plenty of work for older priests either helping people or maintaining everything. There's also a lot of... clerical... work."

"Ugh."

"For apprentices like me though we study and are drilled on things like healing and how our magic works. Lot's of stuff on philosophy and how to act too."

"How'd you become an apprentice anyway? Be a priest and what... submit an application?"

"All priests are taken in by one order or another. Once your abilities manifest and are recognized you are given plenty of time to meet with a few different priests and decide where you want to go, but you have to go somewhere. Most girls end up joining The Lovers, because we do so much that helps women in particular. But it's not a hard and fast rule, we have priests as well as priestesses."

"What if they don't?"

"Don't what?"

"Choose an order."

"You have to."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Priest magic is like, scary dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. You can kill yourself or a lot of other people without meaning to. Also, if a priest is not right in the head, they have to be disabled and restrained, though that is mercifully very, very rare. Something about how we are makes us like grouping up, and keeps us on the right path."

"Huh. I never really had that kind of issue. What made you choose how you did?"

"Well... The Shield was the first to take me in. They're really strict and military-like though, so I never really liked them." I understood that. "A couple of the other orders had people I talked to, but they just never felt like a good fit. The Lovers though, I spent some time with a priestess and went with her as she helped a few women who were pregnant or trying not to become so. It just seemed right. Don't bards have some form of that too?"

"Not really. I was hiding my abilities until I got found out and a local wizard took me in for some basic training. Eventually he introduced me to Jackson, the guy over there in the five colored pants." I pointed out the man in question. "He trained me a bit, and I trained myself a lot. When I got to the capital Lucien taught me some too, though most of that was to do stuff on my own. I think bards are pretty independent. We have friends and stuff but I've never seen any kind of formal grouping."

"That matches the stereotypes yeah."

"Everyone kinda says that. Says we're flighty and a pain and a bit of flakes."

"Yup, that's what bards are like."

I stuck my tongue out at her. We laughed and exchanged a few jokes. There were a few really dirty ones from Kala, seemed The Lovers really liked those. Eventually though she had to leave. A brief hug and promise to meet back up later and I had my meeting with Eleanor.

Finances were not particularly fun or public to go over, but we did back in our room. I had in total around fifteen gold to my name, a frankly absurd sum for most children. A gold was a lot of money, enough to buy a large animal like a cow or horse, though quality would vary depending on the local market you'd surely get a good one for that.

There were thirty copper per silver and twenty silver per gold, but prices in this country and world were a bit wonky. Food prices had been higher during the famine, but at normal rates a copper could get you a meal with a small ale, or a strong drink at a tavern. Things of less value than that were normally grouped together or bartered for. Peasants made a few copper per day.

I was making between one and two silver a day, depending on the amount of things I had to do with mana. Charge rates on 'most' magical items were standardized based on the runes on them, filling one rune was normally three copper. That was about the equivalent to a day's charge for a Lover's Mark. Mana was just expensive like that, a few minutes of work from me might be a week's worth of labor for a farmer back where I came from.

A rune worth of mana was a sort of weird amount to measure too. It was more than some of my simpler, more practiced spells, but less than some of the more complex ones. That all depended on a number of factors involved in the casting, not some set price.

My sugar though, that sold. It was an expensive luxury item that only the wealthy really used. There were also very few sources for good quality sugar, of which mine was. If I spent all my time just making that I could increase my income to easily five silver a day. Something I might have needed to do if I were having to pay to go to the academy.

The tuition was twenty gold, twenty-five if you wanted to stay in the dorms. That amount was insane for most people, enough to buy a house, and furnish it well. People in the city though made more than the villagers, and had more expenses. I was at least glad to hear that the tuition covered all four years, even if you had to pay it up front.

I was glad that The Shield was eating my cost, and a bit unsure of how to keep my money. There were no banks in this kingdom. Someone had attempted to make a few, but they'd either failed or attempted fractional banking. The practice had been seen as hugely immoral and was now severely illegal. For now I supposed that I'd have to just keep my money, or put it into some form of hard goods.

I thought about that as I drifted off to sleep that night. Tired from all the day's activities.