FMH ~ 32!

- Taylor -

“Taylor, you are six years into your training, and I still have to look over your shoulder to make sure that you are doing what I tell you to do.” Master Don’s voice was calm and collected, but it still made Taylor shiver to hear his admonishing words.

She had seen all too much of what Master Don was like. Over the years, the veneer of being a good person had faded, and faded… until one day he had just given up all pretenses. Don wanted out of his deal with the Kingdom, and the only way that he was going to be able to focus on Ascending was to stay in the World of Names at all times. “Master, the issue isn't that I don’t want to listen. The problem is that you are looking over my shoulder. Look at this wreck.”

Taylor waved her hand at the Etiquette trainer that Don had brought in to train her. He was shaking like a leaf, and had soiled himself again. “He’s terrified of you, and every time you appear we lose an hour worth of our time. Cleanse, Purify? Fix him up again.”

The stench that was coming from the rumpled, sweating man vanished even as his clothes smoothed themselves. Taylor nodded as her spells came back to swirl around her, acting like small dogs that needed attention. Master Don looked at the trainer and softly asked, “Is that true? Am I the issue, or is Taylor not paying attention as she should be?”

“M-m-master D-don, there is no way that you-” No more words got out of his mouth before Master Don had grabbed his neck with his left hand and had a sparkling icicle pointed at the man’s eye with the other. 

“There is no call for lying to me, Rupert.” Master Don practically whispered. “I have trained Taylor personally, and if you think I don’t know exactly what she is capable of… hmm. Tell you what? I haven’t ever hurt you. But if you fail to train her properly, I will. I will hurt you. You won’t even remember why you are in pain for the rest of your life. Do the job you are supposed to do, and this will only be a dream. You’ll have a week of your time vanish from your memory, and a fat sack of gold to retire with. How does that sound?”

“S-s-so generous!” Rupert managed not to faint, only his own personal training allowing him to remain conscious. Master Don nodded and walked out of the room that they were staying in, and the man started shaking. 

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Cleanse, go on out again.”

After Rupert was cleaned up, he started teaching Taylor with a vengeance. Classes had been on-again-off-again over the last few days, but now he seemed really focused. Taylor appreciated this. When Master Don was watching her as carefully as he had been the last few days, she couldn’t make progress. She had thrown his training program away long ago, but she had still been exceeding expectations. Still, she wanted her methods and secrets to stay secret. As Rupert babbled, Taylor looked at her status to see what had changed in the six years she had been training.

Cal Scan

Level: 7

Current Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 2/3,400 to level 8!

Body: 4.15

Fitness: 5.2

Resistance: 3.1

Mind: 12.15

Talent: 13.1

Capacity: 11.2

Presence: 3.4

Willpower: 4.7

Charisma: 2.1

Senses: 20.05

Physical reaction: 20.8

Mental energy: 19.3

Health: 81

Mana: 214

Mana regen: 3.5 per second 

Spells

T1: 2

T3: 2

T4: 1

See full listing?

Taylor chose only to look at what had once been Shatter and Fireball, the only two offensive spells she had. Against the orders of Master Don, she hadn’t taken any more spells past this. Thanks to dedicating herself to these two spells, she had brought both of them up a tier and evolved their next spell traits. 

Flame Lance (T3): 0/500 to level 4! Mana cost: 12

Effect 1: Create a ball of fire that detonates for 10 fire damage within a ten-foot sphere centered on impact. To cast, the full chant of ‘Fireball, heed my call, burn the world, burn it all’ must be used. 

Bonus 1, at range: the ball of fire can now be used at range, up to thirty feet. Damage becomes 10+5n fire damage, where n = spell level. (Starts at T2)

Effect 2: this spell can be used as a single-target spell. If it is, the damage is doubled, as is the mana cost. A chant is no longer needed to cast this spell.

Shatter Shot (T2): 0/500 to level 4! Mana cost: 10

Effect 1: Create a spike of ice that chills the target, dealing 5 ice damage and 5 force damage. To cast, the full chant of ‘Destruction, neither frost nor force, the best of both. Shatter’ must be used. 

Bonus 1, at range: the spike can now be used at range, up to twenty feet. Damage becomes 10+(2.5i+2.5f)n damage, where i = ice damage, f = force damage, and n = spell level. (Starts at T2)

Effect 2: this spell can be preemptively shattered to create shrapnel that flies out in a cone for ten feet. If it is shattered before landing, only the ice damage is applied. A chant is no longer needed to cast this spell.

Raising these spells to their current rank and level had cost her almost the entirety of the Potentia that she had gained, but she unravelled spells - how they described forcing the spells to respawn - so often and casually now that she had been able to bring her personal level to seven. It still made her grit her teeth in anger that she wasn’t able to improve herself faster. Master Don kept bringing her to more dangerous areas to force her to find creative ways to survive, and if her spells were too weak to unravel her opponent, she would get killed.

“…which brings us to the newest addition to the… the lineage of the Royal family, Crown Prince Vir. He stands to gain the throne of his father, and oh, celestial above, please be paying attention. I don't want to get an icicle through the eye!” Rupert muttered these last words when he saw the far-away look in Taylor’s eyes.

“Rupert, I can repeat verbatim every word that you’ve said in my presence since you arrived.” Taylor grumped at him. “Relax. I am the best student you will ever have.”

“And so humble.” Rupert turned to the board he was writing the royal genealogy on. But when he faced it, Taylor was already in front of him, inches from his face. He screeched and jumped back, “Ah! How did you-”

“Rupert. Whether I like it or not, I am the next Archmage. Don has already told you that your time here will basically have been a dream. But, when I leave here, I will remember everything about my time. Everything. Keep that in mind.”

His eyes were rolling around, and he seemed faint again. Rupert frantically nodded and bowed several times. “Is there any training method you prefer, anything that I can do to help with your learning of this information?”

Taylor appreciated this shift in his attitude. “Yes. I need all of the information that you have. I can remember it all, I just need it in front of me. After that, we will work on anything else that is required. Utensils for salad, how low to bow or curtsy, any dances that I will need to know, proper forms of addressing each member of the Noble class. Give me the information. Expect that I will understand it and be able to put it into practice immediately. Save your snark and your casual dismissal for the Noble brats that you usually have to train.”

What followed this short conversation was sixteen hours a day of information spewing from Rupert’s lips… for a week straight. There was so much data stored away in this man's head, specifically so much information that Taylor considered ninety-nine percent useless, that he literally hurt himself by trying to say it all in a single week. When he declared with his now-raspy voice that he had told her everything he knew, and showed her how to do all of the motions that she needed to know, Master Don suddenly appeared in the room with them.

“Excellent. Test her.”

Rupert was so startled and so drained from the week of work that he could not muster up a reaction. He simply started calling out what the situation was, and the person she was addressing. “Viscount Frankfurt Turtle, in the palace, at a social gathering of nobility including the Royals. You are not yet the Archmage.”

“It is lovely to see you, Lord Turtle.” Taylor swept into an elegant curtsy, only lowering herself until her knees were just barely bent. Her eyes remained level with Rupert, then she stood quietly.

“Perfect.” Rupert sighed at the response. “You are the Archmage, same situation.”

“Evening, Frank.” Taylor barely nodded in his direction, making Rupert sputter with indignation.

“You can’t just-!”

“Rupert, if I am the Archmage, I can do whatever I abyss-well please.” Taylor snapped at him. “However, what propriety would call for, is this.”

“Lord Turtle. A pleasure.” Taylor bobbed her head respectfully.

“…Correct.” Rupert was fully disheartened over the fact that Taylor was going to follow in Don's footsteps so exactly. They went over dozens of more situations, and each and every time she was able to give the exact correct response. They had a mock dinner, breakfast, brunch, high tea, and multiple other scenarios. They danced, they held conversations, they dueled. “She is… perfect. If I had five students like her, I could hire them all to do my job and retire. I have nothing left to teach her.”

Rupert's words, though hesitant, showed exactly how impressed he was by her learning capabilities. “Still, to get her used to life in the courts, I think you should-”

“Don't tell me what to do.” Master Don grabbed Rupert, slapped a sack of gold into his hands, and shoved a spell into his head. Rupert's gaze became blurry and far away. Don shoved him through a portal that came into existence for a brief moment. “Excellent! now that you are a proper inheritor of my position socially… it is time to see if your self-made training program will grant you the power that my training program was supposed to do. If it were followed.”

Taylor couldn't help but swallow nervously as Master Don grabbed her arm and they teleported away.