Multiverse of Magic & Mistakes (Completed)

2.1.4 Chapter 4

The Red Dunes, Ashein, 330 years ago.

Lissa climbed swiftly up the sand dune, her breath coming out in short sharp bursts as she rushed not to be late for her session with Reinard. He put up with lots of things, but tardiness was not one of them. She had lost track of time in the library, searching through some of the oldest books that the academy permitted students to access. Lissa was on to something, she was sure of it. Just a few more days and she would find what she was searching for.

Reinard was waiting for her, in their usual spot out in the red dune field, far from the prying eyes of Tower dwellers and academy mages.

"Good evening, Lissa!" greeted her tutor in his usual loud manner. "Just on time? Library again?"

"Yeah," panted Lissa, placing her heavy blue school bag down, with a small puff of fine red grains. "I'm onto the really old stuff now, right after the initiation of the limits, one of them has to mention it..."

Reinard shook his head "We've checked Lissa, I'm telling you, there is nothing of use in there."

Lissa frowned at their familiar disagreement "I know, it's not that I don't believe you, it's that I have to check and see for myself." She said to the older mage.

"Let's start today's lesson," responded Reinard, "We can come back to this later."

Lissa frowned again at his dismissal. Reinard knew more than he was letting on to her, she was sure about it. What did he do all day now? He had just graduated from the university, achieving the status of master mage, the current youngest master in the city. They both knew that he would not be keeping that record for long, it was only a matter of time before Lissa took it from him. At fifteen she was clearly the best mage at red dune academy.

Whilst he was waiting for her, Reinard had gathered together the equipment for today's lesson, a scattered assortment of desert rocks, boulders of all possible hues of red, shapes and sizes from their vicinity. Lissa knew exactly where he was going with this.

"Really, Reinard, what makes you think things will go any differently this time around?" she muttered. This was dangerously close to going back to their previous topic of conversation.

"You were so close last time, we have to try again" her teacher insisted, ignoring Lissa's attitude. "

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." quoted Lissa, but she moved into position in the centre of the rock heap.

"Ok, so as last week, try and teleport all these rocks over there, at the same time" instructed Reinard, pointing at a flag atop a tall dune some 100m or so away.

Lissa dropped her attitude and focussed on the task at hand. Whilst she was convinced this would be no different to the last five or so times she had tried it, she wouldn't allow herself to put anything less than her full attention into this attempt. Reinard must have a good reason for asking her to try yet again.

She thought of the teleportation rune, fixing its complex swirls and overlapping loops into her mind; she focussed on each of the rocks surrounding her, all sixty-four of them, and then willed all the rocks to jump, to instantly move through space and reappear near the flag. Lissa could feel the limiter, that damn restriction on her power kick in as she cast the spell, and despite her willing, and immense concentration and reaching down to draw up all of her power, the restrictions prevented her from being able to cast the spell.

"Fuck it!" she cursed as nothing happened. It was an all-or-nothing business this multiple object teleportation, they knew. She could move sixty things, sixty-one, sixty-two, even sixty-three objects just fine. But sixty-four... that was the point at which the fucking restriction charm kicked in. It was the same for her, and for Reinard and every other mage with the max limits that they knew.