100 Vhalar 722
Eternity’s ensorcelling studies had started off hard, very hard, in her opinion, but they’d gotten a little easier now that her class had covered a lot of the prerequisite learnings. There were only so many ways one could describe what a fracture is, how a well is formed, etc. before it grew old and the students yearned for something new. The professor had given them quizzes and exams and now that they’d proven their knowledge they’d been promised that they’d move on. Most of the class had expected to handle actual wells, but were disappointed to find ordinary looking stones on their desks when they walked into the classroom.
“Welcome class,” the professor said with a warm smile. “As promised, we’re moving onto the actual ensorcelling process from here on out.” She knew she would be disappointing her students momentarily so she braced herself for negative reception and started speaking again. She looked around the room as she did so to make sure that everything was in place for the day’s lesson.
One of the students held up their rock to the light and gave it a quizzical look. He rudely interrupted the professor and said, “this is just a regular rock ain’t it? I’m pretty sure I’ve read that wells don’t look like this.” He set the rock down and sifted through some of his notes to see if he’d made some sort of mistake.
Euadne cleared her throat and said, “pay attention, if you just let me finish all will become clear. Now, as I was saying and how I’ve stressed since the very beginning, Ensorcelling is very dangerous. Most wells one finds will have to be dug out of a surface, be it a wall or the ground. It is rare for one to find a well simply sitting there, waiting to be picked up. Because the wells are so dirty, they must be cleaned. Cleaning is the very first step in the ensorcelling process and it’s incredibly important. One cannot skip cleaning under any circumstances. Now, if there aren’t any further questions I’ve set buckets of water and soap near the fire to warm them up and you’ll also find the other necessary cleaning supplies in your kits. Feel free to get started once you’ve settled in.” Euadne put a hand over her mouth and yawned from her desk then took a seat. She pulled out a stack of papers from her bag and got to work grading papers from another course.
The students looked at one another questioningly. Had they really paid all this money just to clean rocks? They could’ve done this in the comfort of their own home. They didn’t complain, at least not to Euadne, but they did chatter in low voices to each other. Some of them did, anyways. Eternity still hadn’t bothered trying to make friends because friends were a luxury at this point in her life.
Eternity took her stone over to one of the buckets of water and dunked it in. She rubbed some soap on it while it was in the water then took it out to examine it. She had no feking clue how to tell if a rock was clean or not. It was a rock. Its very nature was to be dirty. She didn’t think it was possible to wash a rock enough for it to ever be considered “clean”. She figured that she ought to at least wash it a couple more times to show that she’d give it an honest try then afterwards she put set it aside. Eventually she and the other students were all standing by their cleaned rocks, collectively waiting for Euadne to come check their work.
Euadne got to her feet and walked over. She knew that none of them had done it right, then again it was a sort of thing that nobody could possibly get right on their first try. She examined each stone and pointed out flaws. Simply applying soap and rinsing was not enough and she stressed this while demonstrating briefly how one ought to scrub away at their rocks. She had a positive tone to her voice as she spoke and once she’d made her rounds she went back to her desk and pulled out what a clean rock ought to look like.
Euadne said, “This is an example of what your cleaned rock ought to look like. If you miss even a single spec of dirt, the well may explode during later steps in the ensorcelling process. If you think I’m being nit picky, I’m not, I’m simply teaching you what needs to be known. Believe me when I say that none of you will even come close to touching a real well in my class until you’ve proven that you can perfectly clean these rocks every single time. If you make a mistake you’re not only endangering yourself but the others around you.”
The crafter of the group spoke up and said, “wouldn’t it take hours to get a stone that polished?”
“It could,” Euadne said blankly. “this is the sort of thing to takes as long as it takes.” It was the truth, though the students wouldn’t want to hear it.
The crafter replied, “so after we can show we can clean these rocks we can practice with real wells, right?” He looked a little peeved and sounded it too.
Euadne nodded, “yes, but I wouldn’t expect any of you to progress very quickly. Cleaning a stone sounds simple, but doing it correctly is more arduous than it appears. It is not uncommon for an entire season to be spent on various cleaning techniques before a real well is ever touched.” Eternity was not alone when she groaned audibly. A whole season of cleaning rocks? She’d signed up to be an ensorceller not a geologist. She held her tongue from speaking up though.
Euadne smirked at her students’ response. She said with a light chuckle, “don’t tell me you thought it would be easy. Ensorcelling is such a rare talent that it’s uncommon to find any store that sells ensorcelled goods and you’d be hard pressed to find anything actually useful from their shoppe. If you wanted something straight forward and easy there are other professions I could point you to.” Nobody said anything so Euadne continued, “excellent. Now, by next lesson I expect your rocks to look like this one. Don’t worry about it being perfect. I’ll be sure to inform you about the spots you’ve missed and how you ought to go about not making the same mistakes again. Since you all know what is expected of you, class is dismissed early today. Feel free to stay if you’d like, although it looks like some of you look like you’d prefer to be elsewhere.” Euadne looked back to the papers on her desk. She had better things to do than argue with her students but wasn’t so rude as to abandon them in their time of need.
Nobody actually left early. The students were motivated by Euadne’s words which helped them understand that ensorcelling was not something they’d master in a single season. It helped Eternity avoid getting frustrated from the monotony of it all. Before the class was over with most of the students had polished the stone such that it no longer hand any rough edges. None of the wells were evenly sanded down but they’d already gotten a lot better. That didn’t mean they were done though, they’d likely need to spend several more days carefully shaping their rocks to look like the example Euadne had showed them.
By the time the hour was up Eternity’s hands and arms were sore from the repetitive motions. She thought that her lockpicking experience would have made it easier to work with her hands but circular polishing motions were completely different from what she was used to. Her hands were also wet as she worked which made her fingers look like little prunes. She was only able to continue for so long because the crafter of the group kept a steady stream of entertaining commentary, muttering things like “it took me seasons to learn the basics of my craft but I had something to show for it. It was a lot more than a bloody smooth stone.” He was sure to keep his voice low enough such that Euadne couldn’t hear. Most of the students laughed though, it was harmless fun.
Eternity had to skip thievery altogether that night, instead opting to think back on her day and calm her mind enough to fall asleep. Her mind was racing with a million thoughts. Was ensorcelling really worth it if her hands would be too tired to thieve? Was the solution to this issue to work on the endurance of her hands? Or perhaps cut back on thievery? The mere thought of reducing her income made her shudder. So many difficult choices were before her and she hadn’t the feintest clue what the right one was. Such was life.
[Template credit to Pyrre]
