Chapter 87: More than what goes on the page

••• Caius left Arlette’s office with a slightly more reserved smile than he usually did. He walked his way through the grounds and past the gates to where Gareth and the others were waiting with the Carriage. "Young Lord." He acknowledged their greetings with polite nods as he sat in the Carriage and when it began to move a minute later, he had already taken a large book that was his self-composed Grimoire from out of his Storage Ring. Now that lust and a thirst for Arlette’s arousal-charged blood weren’t clouding his thoughts as much, he was able to better assimilate what she had been trying to teach. In truth, he had been making discoveries into Dark Magic on his own. It was his one unique Element and he had a High Affinity with it, so naturally, when he pored through the Arcane Codex, he was drawn to those symbols specifically. Caius flipped through the pages he had filled thus far. Every Arcane symbol was drawn with precision with proper depictions of the required hand seals for each and notes included to explain exactly what they were as well as what other symbols they could potentially have synergy. As Caius looked through his perfect penmanship and artistic talent (which were two of the things he had brought along from being Kevin), he remembered how, yesterday, he had asked Arlette about the binding factor he had been lacking so far for spell creation. Instead of just giving him the answer, she had used that as a Segway to continue talking about the Divinity of Dark Magic because, as she felt, telling him the binding factor, would still be spoiling him if he did not really understand the core of the Element. "The ’binding factor’ as you call it, can vary from person to person. It’s why spells can be signature to the person creating them. It’s why Mages treasure the spells they create..." Arlette had said. "Like the spells you taught me," Caius had interrupted to say. Arlette had smiled at him and nodded. "Yes. I created those spells after grueling, stressful hours of study and introspection. You must be ready to put in the work. I assume you’ve tried to reverse engineer my spells and the others you’ve learned," she had said with a knowing look. "Seemed like a promising idea," Caius had told her with a shrug. Arlette had shaken her head, still with a smile. "Not only is that a cheap way out, it’s also much harder and less rewarding than actually discovering it for yourself." Naturally, as Caius thought back to that conversation, he still didn’t agree. He wanted the easy way out. He could discover his own way later and wanted that nice feeling of accomplishment from finally creating a spell. And to that end, he smiled. "Thanks," he said with genuine gratitude even though he felt he should have probably told Arlette that in person. For all her aversion to giving up the secrets of spell creation, her talks of the Divinity of Dark Magic had veered so much into that region that the Arcane Symbols and spell circles she had put directly into his mind as she lectured may as well have given it all away. With a nonchalant twirl of his fingers in the air, he took a pen out of his Storage Ring. It looked like a fountain pen but rather than being filled with ink, it had simply been enchanted so it only needed its user to add in a tiny bit of Mana and it would produce ink. Essentially, it could never run out. With the pen, Caius drew in the symbols and Spell circles Arlette had given him, and was marveled as they seemed like a piece of the key to a code that had been difficult for him to decipher so far. It was small progress but certainly helpful progress. One that would only get better the more time he spent with them. For instance; He had known from when she gave them to him, but as he drew them perfectly on the page of his Grimoire, Caius could tell even better that the ’Spell Circles’ had no real effect besides establishing one’s connection and understanding of Dark Magic. In a way, the symbols in the Arcane Codex are a language. A language of power that has its own intonations and sounds besides just being used to cast spells. Most people barely understand this. Arlette did, and again, Caius was intrigued by just what sort of person she was. She knew the true nature of Arcane symbols and understood the need for a connection to the Divine to strengthen one’s Dark Magic. She spoke with as much of a flavor to her words and a sort of reverence to her calling of the name of the Goddess of Primal Darkness as that of a Member of the Dark Church and yet, had never been one. Caius took a break from studying the symbols then and placed the end of his pen against his lips to ponder on this a bit when a presence shimmered into appearance. Knowing already who it was, and knowing only he could see or talk to this presence, Caius was calm as he said in his head. ’Been missing you. Thought you forgot about me and what we have going on here.’ "I just wanted to give you space," Samantha said with a resplendent twinkle in her Emerald green eyes and her red hair floating ethereally all about her head, "You’ve been so, Erm, busy so far that if I were to pop in, things would have been too awkward." Caius knew he hadn’t spent all his time being ’busy’ and had a feeling the Author was just way more interested in watching whenever he was. Does that get her off? Watching what were essentially her creations getting it on? "You’re making it weird," Samantha said, blushing with both her palms grabbing her cheeks. ’It IS weird,’ Caius answered and then he looked at the symbols as a question came to mind, ’Did you intend for the Magic of your world to be so difficult?’ "Oh but it isn’t," Samantha said, looking grateful to move past the awkward moment. ’It is to me,’ Caius insisted. Samantha shrugged. "Ehn, that’s relative. Most of it was contextualized in my head. To a reader, it’s pretty simple. For a character, it’s something else. Why do you think characters take so much pride in how far they’ve come? It’s because, to you, a reader, they might have looked like they coast through by just saying a bunch of nonsense words and throwing out their hands, but to them, it was years and years of study." ’So all my current struggles are just random bullshit you came up with in your head and never considered important enough to put in writing?’ Samantha chuckled and nodded. "Essentially, but not completely. Writing is more than what goes on the page. It’s hours of thinking about how stuff might work in your world. Or how characters might interact.????????????????????????????????ℴ????????????.????ℴ???? Of backstories that you might never even get to flesh out." ’Like Arlette’s backstory?’ Caius asked. Samantha went musing for a bit. "Yes. I went a little hard with that. Don’t even know why. I always knew she was going to die early. All of my drafts had made that clear but I still played around with her backstory and even let it inform her decisions and character. And that’s what I mean; It doesn’t matter if those things are expressed directly in storytelling, as long as they inform the characters, they’re canon. There likely will be many surprises in store for you. Unfortunately, with how my brain works, you can’t possibly know everything. Not even about the main characters that you spent the most time reading about and certainly not about the ones that had the least ’screen time’ of all." ’What exactly is Arlette’s backstory?’ Caius asked, curious. Samantha held up a finger and looked like she was listening for something before her lips formed a sly smile. "Hold that thought. One such surprise is here. Are you ready?" "For what?" Caius asked. The way she said it and a sudden worrying chill that followed made Caius forget to speak in his head and he spoke out loud instead. In that very second, he heard Gareth yell, "Everyone out!" The Guards flew at the doors. Gareth leaped at Caius, wrapping his arms tight around him, and before Caius could even be confused, he heard the loud sound of a crash... *BANG!!!* ... and went flying out of the Carriage.