Rune Mage [Fantasy/Adventure | Book 1 +2 | Complete]

Chapter 18: A Fizzle and a Weekly Report

For the tenth time that day, the green-violet rune fizzled and died out. The wound on the artificially-maintained corpse remained open, weeping, cut deep into the tissue and muscle fibres. Seiren let out a groan of frustration.

"Where am I going wrong?" she said out loud, running her hands through her blonde hair and tugging it. She tugged the pad of designs close to her and scrutinised her sketches. "They're the right design. There are enough gradients. They're aligned correctly. The violet should augment it and make the wound penetrable. So why is nothing working?"

She stamped around, running her arms in windmills and making gargling noises. What was she missing? There must be something. Too many gradients? Too few? The triangles? The circles? The half-lines? Three days of work. Thirty hours of slaving, bent over that table, straining her eyes until she thought she might go blind. She groaned, clutching her face, and whistled, her cheeks puffed.

Oh dear. My sister's gone insane.

"Why is it not working?" Seiren yelled, kicking her chair over. "Ten runes, Madeleine. They were flawless! How are they not working at all? How can they have no effect whatsoever? It's almost like... almost like..."

Almost like the subject wasn't even affected.

"Because it's already dead," breathed Seiren. No living tissue to remain in a dead body. No healing potential to be stimulated by her altered green runes. Not even chaos magic could fix that, surely.

I need living bodies.

Madeleine took in a sharp breath. You can't.

"I can't progress without testing this. And I can't test healing runes on dead bodies that can't heal. I'll make no progress. My research will get terminated and I can't bring you back."

That's morally reprehensible to test on living people!

"So what do you suggest? That I wait till people are literally dying on me then I'll take it out and see what happens? You saw that dog back in Benover. And besides, the military would never permit me to try this on the battlefield. They'll never let me even near the battlefield, for starters. They won't want a non-military mage there."

You're saying we should just grab randomers and try it on them and to hell with the consequences? Are you even hearing what you're saying?

"Maybe not randomers! Maybe... I don't know! People who deserve it if it goes wrong?" An idea struck her. "Criminals on death row or something! It means their lives will be worth something, at least, even if they're going to die anyway."

That's not for you to decide!

Seiren was already grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling a letter of request. Madeleine continued to yell at her, but Seiren blocked it out, chewing the inside of her cheeks as she pondered over the words. The cadaver came in useful for studying human anatomy, but her runes wouldn't work on it. To truly ascertain its powers and limitations, she would need a living body and would request that the council provide to that need so she might continue her progress. She paused, and added she had created ten new runes to try.

Madeleine stayed in sullen silence as Seiren left the Institute with the sun beginning to set. Seiren ignored her in return, marching to the mail store in Bicknor and seeking a fat pigeon to send her request. She paid the man there.

"Hey, Seiren, is it? How's the work going?" he said. What was the man's name? Ingurd? Ingo? Ingolfur?

"Fine. Just need to send more paperwork to Benover," she said, pressing a violet sealing rune to the paper. It glowed and secured the paper. She stroked the fat bird and released it into the air. It soon became a dot in the sky.