Chapter 5: Luck Magic

Chapter 5: Luck Magic

Luck Magic

Everyone knew luck magic was a pointless field of study.

Toss a coin a thousand times, and the luck mage will win five hundred and one. It was plain truth.

Spatial magic at the lower levels was barely useful. Low level luck magic was actually detrimental. Even a cautious users chances of making a mistake were far higher than any chance of success. And the successes one did achieve would always be small.

The whole field was more of a historical curiosity than anything else these days. None of the serious magical families would grant one of their members the resources needed to study it.

So when Iven Orellens magical propensity was tested in his youth, and found to be luck magic, he was immediately given his choice of the familys available tutors. Obviously, his elders reasoned, his training in another discipline would need to begin as soon as possible. He was a smart boy, with good base levels of power. In a few years, if he applied himself, he might be able to catch up with his peers even in a field he was less inclined toward.

Iven dutifully chose a master who specialized in object enchantment. It was considered a particularly valuable skillset in a merchant family, and since he had to start from the beginning, he might as well make everyone happy.

He worked hard. He worked very, very hard. He worked while the other children played, carving runes until his fingers shook, forcing mana into the necessary patterns even though it felt like trying to blow mud through a reed.

Hewasnt terrible at it.

But there was no joy. Nothing was ever easy. And it seemed to him that at least the other young Orellens, studying their barely useful spatial magic, were sometimes having fun.

When, he asked his master, will I start to like enchanting?

The woman had raised her eyebrows. You should count yourself lucky that youre able to learn a magic outside of your natural inclination so well, she said. Some cant, you know.

Do you mean its always going to be hard?

Of course, she said baldly. You're not a natural enchanter.The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

Iven was pragmatic for a ten-year-old. But he was not practical-minded enough to accept that he was going to be miserable practicing magic for the rest of his life.

He continued his studies, but he no longer gave them his full attention. He let his progress as an enchanter slow to a crawl.

Instead, he focused his efforts on the most grandmotherly of the librarians in the Enclaves teaching archives. It took several months worth of whining and even a few tears, but eventually the womans better judgment was exhausted.

Fine, child, fine, she sighed one afternoon, peering over her desk at his pitiful face. Ill have the acquisitions team look for scrolls on luck magic. The gods know nobody else will use them, but at least they shouldnt be too expensive.

Thank you, Auntie, Iven said, brightening instantly. I promise Ill make you proud.

A few weeks later, the scrolls began to arrive. There were far more of them than Iven had anticipated. Apparently, some people had simply thrown them in forfree when the acquisitions team made other purchases.

Well, the librarian said, as she set him up at a table with half a dozen of the most basic ones. When it doesn't work out, at least youll learn from the failure.

Iven had already decided not to fail. If you never stopped working on a project, then you couldnt actually be said to have failed it.

He quickly discovered that all the old sayings about luck practitioners were true. The basic spells were garbage. They were complicated, they took hours, and they didnt do anything. Perhaps if hed been an immortal, who could cast them thousands of times, hed have seen some effect. As it was, Iven couldn't manage to make anything particularly lucky happen, no matter what he tried.

Just below a Magus.

Most historians considered Wexs diary to be a work of fiction. But Iven had liked it when he was ten. Hed liked to imagine himself surpassing Wex one day.

He hadnt re-read it in years, and it didnt hold up well to a more mature perspective. Wex was obviously a jackassthe kind of man who found himself so interesting that nobody else could stand to be around him.

In the worst funk of his life, Iven read Wexs story so that he could feel angry at someone other than himself.

And this maiden being impressed by my knowledge of fates ebb and flow did travel alongside me on my way for miles, her base hunger for me as clear to mine eyes as the vagaries of my lady chance

Yes, Iven said viciously because every woman walking in the same direction as you is hungry for you. That makes sense.

I did tell her that it was not to be between the two of us, for she was of lowly birth and unfortunate countenance. And I did allow her to save some of her face by arguing but little when she insisted that I had misunderstood her intent.

I hope she punched you in the groin for calling her poor and ugly, said Iven, kicking one of the legs of the library table harder than necessary.

He and Wex continued in this vein for a while. Wex very full of himself, Iven very pissed off with him for it.

And were it not for my greatest power requiring so much of mine body and magic, I would surely have surpassed this point

Whine, whine, whine, said Iven. This was Wexs most common complaint. He considered his greatest power as a practitioner of luck magic to be what he called his Sense of Chances Vagaries. It seemed like a needlessly fancy way of saying he could tell if someone or something else was lucky or not.

Apparently the spell Wex used to do this was a hybrid hed come up with between advanced luck magic and basic empathy magic. And Wex, being a jackass, was no good at empathy magic.

Wex wanted to be able to use his Sense of Chances Vagaries, then follow it up with one of his techniques for shifting anothers luck. Presumably so that he could more easily cheat people out of money, which was his favorite pastime.

But using the sensing spell took so much out of Wex that he could never complete the next set of spells.

Iven snorted as he read yet another complaint about the exact same thing. Wex, apparently clueless about the shortcomings of his own personality, had grown to believe that the limitations on his Sense were caused by a barrier created by the gods to keep him from becoming too powerful.

Idiot. Iven snorted. You're not Hamila of the Lamp. The gods don't even know your name. And whyd you have to make up some fancy spell anyway? Why didnt you just use a scrying technique?

Even a magician level practitioner like him could do a basic scry of the present state of a nearby object or person. Sure, there were about a thousand ways to prevent someone from scrying you, but only if you were a magic user yourself. Wex was worried because he had trouble sensing the luck of his local barkeep, for heavens sake.

Arrogant bastard, thought Iven. Wex had wasted years of his life trying to break down a door because he thought he was too special to knock.

A moment later, however, a confusing realization struck Iven. Wait he said aloud. Why doesnt anyone else scry for luck?

He searched his memories, trying to think of someone whod done it. But Wex was the only historical figure whod even cared about reading other peoples luck. The entire field of luck magic, such as it was, had been built on the presumption that the point of it was to change ones fortune.

To move the whole road of fate instead of reading the map.

If you had a map, though, thought Iven, couldnt you just turn around and head in a better direction?

Iven Orellen didnt know it yet, but this simple idea was the most important one he would ever have.