Chapter 13: A merciful distraction.

Something was stopping her from sleeping. Most likely Sivir's drunken rants that echoed from every wall, but there was something else. Something more subtle and minute. The arcane hint somewhat gave it away as well.

It's probably Lord Xerath, Azel thought.

Trying to return to sleep, she rustled the covers of the large and ornate bed she had been given. It was far too large for her liking and the softness of the mattress felt discomforting. Azel was more used to the more rugged and makeshift beds that she and her father had made during her arcane tutoring to make sure they were uninterrupted during training sessions. Those times when they returned home and be welcomed by her mother and the scent of spices that filled the small house that her family had managed to maintain for many decades.

That was all gone now.

Her family was wiped out now.

She was the only one left.

Out of the six brothers and sisters she had grown up with, she was the only one that remained.

Two of them had been lost through illness, another two to a conscription program and her remaining brother cut down in front of her. She was the only one.

Tears welled up inside her. She had not thought about this until now.

The only one.

Brief spasms of muffled crying could be heard outside the door to Azel's room, but no further.

Hours had passed before she stopped crying, her eyes still red from the tears.

That thing was still there though. That continuous arcane signal.

Like hell am I getting to sleep with that in the background, she thought.

Clothing herself, she went searching for the signal's origin.

Xerath was performing diagnostics.

There was something wrong in his system.

Errors that had caused significant uncertainty in his control parameters.

True, his magic did have monstrous power, but there was an arcane interference that he could not find which was not in the many equations he had used to calculate such errors.

Irritating.

His current form with his crystalline legs spread out allowed him to triangulate to mere nanometers any differing power gradients that might cause such uncertainty, yet he found none?

He searched deeper into himself, into the very partition containing what remained of his human mind. This would be dangerous indeed, especially if the cycling equilibria of the Catenas were to grab hold of it, which would result in his mind being scrapped and tossed into the depths of the Chains without hope of recovery. Multiple memories of his childhood had gone missing as a result of this process. He had to retain some shred of his humanity in his form. It was the one thing that he could not lose. His power waxed and waned, but this, this must remain. No matter the cost.

He sensed something coming up to the parapet where he was perched.

Xerath recalled his probing mechanism and returned to his focus on the physical realm before him.

His body reformed from the separation, the crystals denoting his legs realigning with conventional human anatomy. He could see so much more of the arcane plane, but his detachment from the physical stopped him from moving through it. An interesting 'mode' indeed.

"My Lor-, wait it's stopped now." Azel withdrew her words as the arcane noise stopped.

"What is it, Azel?"

"I-It's nothing my Lord, there was just this weird magic noise or something coming from up here."

"So people can notice that?" Xerath said under what would have been his breath.

"Y-"

"Never mind Azel, it is nothing."

Azel made movements with her mouth to try to speak, yet nothing formed. After a moment of doing so, she closed her mouth and looked down, acknowledging Xerath's answer.

Silence followed between the two parties.

"Y-You were meditating up here, my Lord?"

"Does it surprise you when there is such a beautiful night sky?"

"What do you mean?"

"I forgot how beautiful it was. The stars, not blighted by the presence of clouds, in all of their eternal vigilance."

"It's been a long time since I have ever looked up at the stars. There just has never been a time I wanted to. I remember a night from my childhood where my father pointed out Aurion-"

Azel grew silent, remembering the times she had spent with her family. There were so many times that she was thankful of them, for all that they had done.

They were all gone.

Why were they all gone?

Why did they have to go?

Why?

Xerath looked on at the girl trembling before him.

He could guess what she had stopped at.

She looked so weak and fragile. Something a mere desert gust could touch and shatter like glass.

He knew one thing that might help her. A distraction, a conversation of some sorts to rid her of the torments.

"Oh yes! Do you remember what we were discussing with Seer Malzahar about?"

Azel looked up at Xerath, her eyes red from the silent tears.

"We-We were talking about d-disciplines, r-right?"

"I never got around to actually explaining what the disciplines are. Do you wish to know?"

Xerath didn't like consorting with people in such a condescending manner, but to keep Azel's tears at bay, this seemed like the only way he knew how. Curses.

"Y-Yeah, I guess you d-didn't."

"So a discipline is the manner in which your magic takes form. Masters tend to pass down their own discipline to their students, which, because of your differing discipline, was the reason why Malzahar found it auspicious. I know of cases where such things have happened with a change in the control method, but it is rare for one to have both the control and medium different from their master."

Azel looked at him blankly. Control? Medium? The hell was this?

"Ah… I forgot the more important part. Excuse my tangent. A discipline is split into two parts, the control method, and the medium. The medium of a discipline comes first in the denomination, of which there are three different media, these being Physical, Arcane, and Psychological. Physical media uses the physical realm to transfer the effects of a spell, so a fireball would use raw flame produced from a chemical reaction to burn a target. Arcane media uses direct arcane energy as its media, so an arcane fireball would flood the target with fire magic, burning it to ash. Now Psychological, or Psyche, is an interesting one in that it works on the mind itself. This means that a fireball of Psyche media would burn as an arcane media, but the effects would scar the nerves with immense amplified pain, more so than either arcane or physical media."

Xerath looked once again at Azel. Her tears had stopped and her eyes were focused on his speech.

Good. This is working.

"The control method is how the magic is controlled by the mage. I know of three of these, but I learned this eons ago so the information may be outdated. There is Conduction, Induction, and Insulation forms of control. Conduction is about the mage having direct connection with the magic, so that he may directly control the fireball as it is flying in addition to being able to directly influence the size of the explosion. This is by far the most common of the three control methods because of its ease of use. Induction is about indirect control of the magic, using parameters to set and stabilize the power. This one is all about separating oneself from the magic, using what is known as parameters to control the size, power and the basic effects of the spell. For example, an Induction fireball would have parameters of having the size of, say, a goblet, having an induced energy with a value of the total energy stored inside a dried log, and finally the introduction of the fire element to feed off the energy. This may sound strange, but it is a hard process to describe when I am giving a very short course to a complete novice. Training into the art of induction took me three years for just the basic calculations that one needs to generate the parameters alone. That aside, Insulation is even stranger. Insulation control is most commonly associated with magical warding, but any shield can be a weapon if you know how to use it. Insulation is very difficult to describe, but the most common forms of Insulation involve using bursts of high velocity 'capsules' of incredibly concentrated magic or large waves of disruptive magic. Both of these take large amounts of energy and, for the latter, are indiscriminate in their effect. In terms of a fireball, an Insulation fireball would often have a 'shell' of arcane shielding with an intense center of elemental fire magic."

Xerath looked once again at Azel. Her vacant expression told him that she had been listening. That was until her mind had been fried by the information coming at her.

At least she had cheered up.

He was thankful he had managed to calm her down.

"Getting back to what your discipline is, yours is Arcane Conduction, perhaps the most common discipline and is the main idea people have of magic. These two mean that your fireballs are in the arcane spectra and thus can be redirected using arcane warding and your control can be distorted by others given enough time to, 'hack' shall we say, your magic, resulting in you losing control. This means that for Conductors, they have a harder time with counter-spells because of how they have constant control of their magic."

"For myself, as a Physical Inductor, I have less to worry about counter spells because I rely on complex parameters to control my spells and have little contact with the spell itself. I do, however, rely on the physical plane to conduct my energy meaning that physical shielding can stop it but I have more than enough raw power to overcome any conventional armor with ease. However, if I were to tell someone beforehand that I was an inductor, an opposing party may spend immense amounts of time deciphering the induction parameters and would grant them access to my abilities. This is why I was disagreeing with Malzahar earlier about him disclosing his discipline when we had only just met."

"So… why have I only heard of this now? I mean, I've found anything about it. Why did my father not tell me anything about it?"

"Because Conductors are idiots. It does not matter to them what sort of enemy they come up against, they can always just conjure up a spell and hope it works. Inductors and Insulators are different. To them it does matter because they cannot work in the same way conductors do. In my Academy days, out of the several thousand in the academy, only four dozen were not Conductors. Of those, only five were Insulators. I should know that much. After all, one of them was…"

Xerath paused for a moment, remembering the lost past.

"…My closest friend."

Something was on the horizon.

It was far away, perhaps several kilometers, but Xerath could sense it.

A sporadic distortion on the arcane spectra.

Null magic materials.

Idiots, activating such things at such a range would only waste energy and provide an advance warning to any magician with even the slightest of talent.

But the size of the distortion was massive, perhaps stretching almost a kilometer across. Whatever it meant, it was strong.

Incredibly strong.