Inite Materia Arcana
The shop was old and worn. Crisp mountain air seeped in through loose window frames and most of all, the crack between where the door didn’t quite reach the floorboard.
The relative chill of the establishment was part of its charm for Lyr, who despite many formative years in the Imperium had never quite taken well to much of the country’s sweltering heat. Tucked away in the mountains, Marothius was unlike anywhere else in the country she now called home. It was quiet, and quaintly charming. She could openly practice her craft here in peace and earn a small living from her creations. With the laws of the land blessing her work. Magic exists to serve man. Here, in her shop, was the epitome of that mandate. Magical powders, scrolls, and relics littered the shelves. An entire case was devoted to her own creations: figurines, mirrors, and panels with every kind of imbued property that she had yet successfully stabilized in her experiments.
Ilyria was sitting in her usual far corner, reclining back with Magister Antonidas’ recent book. As always his work was dry and compact, skipping all the rudimentary explanations. Brilliant in its conclusions, but inaccessible to most in its ponderous verbiage. Antonidas had always comported himself in this manner. A rare talent in this age who was less known than he deserved because he quite simply never cared to slow down in order to insure the work was fully understood. In the highest circles his intelligence was respected, if not the man himself. They exploited all his effort while undermining him politically at every turn. The way he was ever taken for granted was a great travesty.
She was, for the most part, glad to finally be away from the intrigue and double-dealing. It was the discoveries themselves that were important to her. You will know who is deserving of greater knowledge by their works. By and large, the Magisters and nobie houses had proven themselves undeserving.
She flipped the page and continued following along the derivation of his formulae for the resonance energy of wisps, marking with her quill in the margins. Had he miscalculated the variability of ambient energy in the wisp’s surroundings due to localized field disruption? So far that she saw, it appeared he had not.
She continued reading as the door creaked open to admit a guest, supposing that her assistant would come attend to the man in question at any moment. She continued busily scratching away at the corner with her quill with intense blue eyes that stared determinedly into the scrolls and lips pursed in thought.
She hardly even noticed the approaching footsteps.
It had been ages since he had visited that area last. Or was it really that long. The trouble of being as old as him, was that on occasion, or fairly often, memories would blur. Some gone altogether only to appear later on. A small little shoppe was practically reeking of magic, so being curious as to why no one else had noticed this, he wanted to have a look inside.
The abnormally tall man opened the door and took a careful step inside. His boots dirty and muddy. By all looks he was someone from the working class just passing through. Perhaps a hedge mage? The options were plentiful. Although Tevinter really had no such thing as ‘hedge mages’. Perhaps an eccentric wizard? That seemed more accurate.
Those green eyes light up in wonderment at the insides of the shoppe. Wall to wall covered in books, scrolls, elixirs, potions. All in various colours, the magic, he could practically touch it. Ancient, not so ancient, and eccentric relics decorated the shelves and seemed scattered everywhere.
There was no one in sight. With the exception of a woman who seemed deep in thought, and quite busy. Normally he’d hate to disturb anyone, but she seemed to be th source of the magic he was sensing. As he had gotten closer, he noticed how different it felt, and it was starting to dawn on him what it was, and why it made him so curious. It was even more odd she wasn’t thrown away in some temple if he was correct.
“Pardon me madam” placing his hat in his hands, he looked at her “Is this establishment yours?”
