Chapter 6: Tutor Maeve and the Dampening
Lance woke up to the sound of Opal's wristband vibrating against the metal frame of the bed above him. He was in a small, sterile dormitory room carved directly into the Aetherium stone. The air conditioning hummed, but the golden Motes were almost nonexistent here, the room designed for maximum stability—or, Lance suspected, maximum lack of magic.
Opal was already awake, sitting on the edge of her bed, nervously fiddling with the buckle of her red backpack.
"I hate that Kian," she muttered, not looking at Lance. "He played us perfectly. He knew we'd try to sabotage the test, and he used the chaos to bleed the system. And now Dean Eris thinks we're co-conspirators because we were sitting exactly where the siphon started."
"We're still alive, and we got the easy tutor," Lance pointed out, pulling on a pair of borrowed, stiff-cotton trousers. "That's a win, technically."
"A win gained through accidental failure and betrayal," Opal sighed. "We're the worst heroes ever."
Lance shrugged. "Maybe that's the point of remedial. We don't have to be heroes yet."
They followed a rudimentary map etched into a wall crystal—no paper maps allowed in the Aetherium—to a brightly lit, circular room marked 'Basic Mote Siphon & Stabilization.'
Tutor Maeve was exactly as Kian had promised: placid, slightly disorganized, and seemingly unbothered by the state of the world. She was a woman in her forties wearing thick, comfortable wool robes, perpetually stirring a mug of something that smelled suspiciously like herbal tea.
The class consisted of only six students, all looking equally overwhelmed and miserable.
"Welcome, Key Bearers," Maeve said softly, without looking up from her tea. "I am Tutor Maeve. In this class, we learn the core, necessary task of Mote management: Siphoning and Dampening."
She gestured toward a series of shallow, copper bowls arranged on a workbench. "Siphoning is the fundamental power move: drawing ambient Motes into your own Stabilizer Matrix. Most advanced mages can siphon an entire room in seconds. Dampening," she added, looking vaguely at Lance and Opal, "is the opposite. It is the art of intentionally neutralizing chaos."
She looked directly at Lance, then gave a subtle, private nod of recognition that instantly made him nervous.
"Your task today is simple," Maeve continued. "You will attempt to dampen this bowl."
She walked to the workbench and touched one of the copper bowls. Instantly, the copper flared. It wasn't glowing with gold Motes, but with a chaotic, sputtering magenta energy—the color of unstable, unwanted magic.
"This bowl contains highly volatile, residual energy—the kind that leaks out of a poorly closed portal. Your job is to make the magenta stop. Beginners almost always try to siphon the energy, which only makes it explode. You must dampen it. Think of it as pushing the color back into the copper."
Opal went first. She tentatively held her hands over the magenta bowl, her face tight with concentration. Her "cheap firecracker" energy immediately went into overdrive, fighting the volatile magenta. The result was a loud, buzzing whine and a burst of uncontrolled gold Motes that scattered around the room. The magenta remained.
"Five units siphoned, zero units dampened," Maeve recorded calmly on her ledger. "Good attempt, Opal. You have energy. Too much energy, perhaps."
Lance stepped up next. He placed his hands over the bowl. He was still reeling from the events of the day before—the fear, the betrayal, and the sudden realization that his one useful skill was restraint.
He didn't try to pull the energy; he visualized his Motes, his "weak tea," as a shield—a thick, dull layer of insulation surrounding the bowl. He focused on the vibration of the magenta, the way it moved chaotically.
Slow it down. Flatten it out. Contain it.
He pushed his control forward—not a surge, but a gentle pressure.
His Stabilizer Matrix, designed for dampening, responded instantly. The magenta color didn't vanish; it simply dimmed. The sputtering noise faded to a low hum. He held it for three full seconds before his concentration broke and the color flared back up.
"Very good, Silverwoods," Maeve said, making a note. "Three seconds of dampening. That is a success." She then paused, tilting her head. "You possess the Silverwoods stillness—a very specific, almost mechanical calm required for this technique. It is a necessary skill for a Key Bearer, even if it is not flashy."
The term, Silverwoods stillness, made the hairs on Lance's arms prickle. It wasn't a compliment about his character; it was an assessment of his bloodline's specific magical attribute, a quality that Dean Eris had also noted. It confirmed that he was defined by his family's reputation, even if he didn't know the legend behind it.
Maeve then touched the ledger. A faint sound, too quick to identify, emanated from the parchment—a high, complex trill. Lance blinked, but Maeve was already moving on.
"Dampening is not exciting, but it is necessary," Maeve said. "Your assignment, Lance, is to work with Opal. Her volatility is a danger. Your job is to dampen her surge."
Opal's eyes widened. "He's supposed to babysit my Motes?"
"Precisely," Maeve said. "If you can stabilize her chaotic energy for ten seconds, you may leave early."
For the rest of the class, Lance and Opal sat together. Every time Opal tried to generate a steady, controlled stream of Motes (siphoning), her power would immediately jump into a chaotic surge.
Lance would place his hands near hers, not touching, but visualizing a net woven from his "weak tea" motes, catching her explosive energy. The effort made his head ache, but it worked. He found that by stabilizing Opal, he forced his own control into hyper-precision. He was learning how to use his small amount of power effectively.
They didn't achieve ten seconds, but they managed four and seven seconds, making slow, painful progress. Lance realized that intentionally dampening the chaotic motes (a low-power, defensive skill) was the only way to manage Opal's surges. This was his first deliberate use of his skill, pushing his growth to the current 1% limit.
As they packed up their Mundane shields, Maeve approached Lance.
"Silverwoods," she said, her voice unusually soft. "You have the capacity for great restraint. That is a precious thing in this reckless place." She looked meaningfully at the heavy, thick history textbook Lance was clutching. "Do not discard the past simply because the present is loud."
Lance nodded, wondering what she meant. He looked down at the mundane, plastic-covered book.
He hadn't opened the textbook since he arrived. It was just a shield. Until now.