26. Giles

26. Giles

Morgana thanked Rufus, who cheerfully departed from her with a wave. She approached the table Giles was sitting at, taking in the man's appearance. He was, as she'd already noted, an older man—in his late forties or earlier fifties. Not as wizened and crooked as Master Leonel, but his silver neat-trimmed beard spoke of some amount of life experience.

Getting closer, she peeked at the book he was scribbling into. Her eyes widened slightly to see they were spell diagrams, though she wiped that reaction away by the time he looked up.

"Hello," Morgana said. "Are you busy? I don't mean to be a bother."

Giles glanced down at the page he was drawing on, orienting himself to his visitor, before chuckling good-naturedly. "As busy as I ever am, these days," he said with a hint of wryness. "Which is to say occupied, yes, but hardly so much so I'll rebuff someone who tries to speak with me. There's places with more privacy than the lobby, yet here I am, no?" He gestured at the seat across from him. "Please, sit."

Morgana sat. Even in that short interaction, she found herself oddly put at ease by the man. He reminded her of Master Leonel. Well, not especially—they didn't look very similar, and Giles was much younger. But more than anyone else she had met in this world. Probably because he was the first academic, or pseudo-academic, that she had found thus far.

"Rufus pointed me your way," she explained. "I was asking him some questions about...spell designs. He told me that you're a Designer."

"Indeed, I am. You're familiar with us, and our science?"

At that question, a brief dilemma spawned, one she had to mull over carefully. Two options were available to her: play totally ignorant like she had with Rufus, or reveal that she wasn't a rank beginner.

The former was the safer option. Morgana was concealing her comprehensive knowledge of magic because she had access to tools and know-how that could change an entire culture. If this society learned how to farm mana and create their own spells outside of the System's influence, that would change their path of progress forever. So it was obvious why Morgana kept it close to her chest...not to mention the potential danger from all sorts of unknown entities, who might want to exploit her or her knowledge.

But. Playing dumb with Giles would lead nowhere. She would be given a brief overview of his work and the conversation would stymie there. How could she possibly prod him for the true extent of his knowledge if she were 'clueless to magic?' Perhaps with some lucky turns in conversation, and innocent questions that hinted at much broader concepts she wanted to test his understanding on, she could get something—but especially the details, the extent of his knowledge of rune weights, balancing across lines of symmetry, best practices for spell design, among many others would be all but impossible to question him on.

But there was an alternative path she could take. One that kept her mostly safe, but did reveal some odd information about her that would intrigue Giles. Claiming some competency. Her ability to subtly extract information from him would be greatly expanded.

For a long second, Morgana hesitated. Giles paused, obviously sensing something odd in how long she took to answer.

"I'm not familiar with your organization," she finally admitted, making her mind up. "But I'm not wholly ignorant on your field, either, I suppose you could say."

That pair of statements produced a more interested expression than she expected. "You're familiar with spell design, but not the Designers? I find that hard to believe."

Morgana hid a grimace. "I...suppose you could say...I'm not from around here." That was already more than she wanted to give to a stranger, but her curiosity had been piqued. She really wanted to have this conversation. "Where I lived, we were rather insular. Our own community. And I've just ventured out." Lies, of course, but reasonable and a good explanation for her situation.

"And where is that, may I ask?"

Morgana dipped her head. "I'd rather not say."

"I suppose that was a given," Giles said. "Forgive an old man his nosiness." He hummed in consideration. "And your people experimented with spell architecture independently of the Designers? Fascinating. How thoroughly?"

Morgana shrugged. "I don't have a standard to go by. That's why I was asking Rufus about it." She gestured at his book. "Can I ask, what are you drawing?"

Giles paused, then, surprising Morgana, turned the book around and scooted it across the table toward her. The pages were thick, meant to easily absorb ink without staining through to the other side. Not too dissimilar from spellbooks in Morgana's world, though surely Giles couldn't actually invoke from these diagrams; she doubted this was conductive ink. They were, what, experimentation? Study? Trying to come up with ways to upgrade his skills, somehow?

Regardless, Morgana's attention locked to the page as soon as Giles offered it, hungrily taking in the image.

She was...disappointed.

Sloppy. Imbalanced. Extraneous runes. Was that a propulsion array with a locking rune in it?

"For example," Giles said, reaching over to flip a page of his spellbook, which was still sitting in front of Morgana.

Her eyes widened as he passed through them, catching more and more glimpses of arcane diagrams of various sorts. Even quick snippets were fascinating, if in more of a novel way than an illuminating one, since Giles's spellwork was rather crude.

Landing on one page in specific, he paused.

Morgana's eyes widened, and she breathed in, shocked. A System design. Copied from somewhere, surely.

And...

What was it?

Morgana's eyes tore through the design. She drank in the details as fast as she could, her brain—already stimulated—suddenly working in overdrive.

He flipped the page hastily, as if the pause had been by accident. Her hand twitched forward to stop him, to flip back to the previous page, though she managed to keep it under the table and not actually do so.

"Wait—what was that?" Morgana asked.

Giles raised his eyebrows, obviously taking note of her reaction. Morgana tried to master herself.

"Our transparency only goes so far," he said in a friendly enough manner. Not chiding, simply stating a fact. "Certain knowledge is kept strictly within our organization. Especially hidden System designs."

"Hidden?" The word came out far more excited than she intended, despite her efforts to act calm.

He smiled. "As I said, we have our secrets." He flipped a few more pages before landing on another of his own formulae, the actual one he had wanted to show off. But he seemed to sense, probably by the dismay Morgana couldn't fully keep off her face, that her attention had already been captured by a different topic.

"You have a good eye, though," Giles said wryly. "That particular design has been the subject of some...discourse among our community. I shouldn't have shown it to you." He inclined his head. "I think you know more than a little about design yourself, to be so intrigued at even a glimpse of it."

Morgana grew flustered. "It just, um, looked very complex. Denser than the others. There were more...lines."

It was a lame excuse, but Giles seemed to buy it. Or at least pretended to. He nodded and continued. "I'm interested in what remote place you come from, and what instruction you've had—but, of course, since you said you'd prefer not to say, I won't press."

Nonetheless, he paused briefly, to see if Morgana would offer something more. She had to sit awkwardly for a few seconds before Giles moved on.

"So. Is this merely a friendly chat?" he asked. "Or are you interested in joining the Designers and learning more? We're not a cult, as some people say. You could revoke your membership at any time...though you obviously won't be privy to all of our resources immediately. We have a hierarchy, as all organizations do."

Initially, Morgana had been wary of getting involved with them. With anyone, really, besides Vesper and Flint, who she knew she could trust. But now that she knew what the Designers offered? It wasn't even a question. Even if the situation would be difficult to navigate, and that she couldn't let them know the true extent of her knowledge, she needed access to their compendium of System designs.

Especially ones like the previous, which she'd only caught a glimpse of. Seriously, what was it? Her brain was still churning as she made her best guess. Access. That was the impression she had gotten. But a spell that allowed access into what? Giles had flipped the page too fast for her to have memorized the whole thing, or even more than a few glimpses of particular arrays.

Nonetheless, while the Designers certainly hadn't 'cracked the System' like Morgana herself eventually wanted to do, a collection of System designs—hidden designs, he had said?—was an obvious first step toward that goal. She had an opening to pry at, now. Her interest was so keen and intense that she briefly considered stealing the man's spellbook, though of course she discarded the idea immediately.

Progress was built off the backs of others, a collaborative effort of research over decades. Like she had sought out the Institute to learn from, here, in this world, she should seek out the Designers. Take what they had learned and improve upon it, making new breakthroughs. Likely by significant amounts, she thought, glancing down at Giles' clumsy design.

"Perhaps..." Morgana said slowly. "Perhaps I am. I'm undecided. How would it work, if so?"