Sententimancer, Part 1

Close now. So close. Savren could already nearly visualize the fruit of his timeless mental labour, the creation from yet another wonderful flash of inspiration. He focused his gaze one more time, hopefully the last time, on the Aethereal glyphs that shone right before his eyes. The pale blue light that he had chosen to write them in helped him remind his cause: knowledge, and knowledge alone. "Patience," Savren mumbled. "Patience and Insight." These were the last words his master had spoken to him, and Savren used it both as mantra, personal quote and philosophy. He moved a glyph to the far end of the row, then slowly pulled it towards him with a beckoning move of his hand and started Shaping again. In unison with his movements and thoughts, the glyph twisted and liquefied, joining parts on one spot while separating on others. When Savren was done with it, he expelled it back to its place in the row. The glyphs dimmed slightly, only to burst out an intense flare of blue light exactly two seconds after the row had been completed again. "Compile error," Savren sighed with a grin, remembering his origin in that long-forgotten Strand. This small setback didn't matter, however, he had all the time, both in this world and in others.

He beckoned the previous glyph again and tampered a little around with it, making random shapes and signs while thinking of his previous attempt. Obviously, the harmony between the glyphs was right and all other glyphs except for this one synergized perfectly. Just this one glyph, the glyph he came to refer to as the Igniter, didn't fit in the sequence. Savren mentally went through all the possible solutions and problems once again. Until now he had always tried to use only one Igniter, since more would definitely add unwanted complexity and might cause imbalances in the sequence. However, now he began to realize that a spell as potent as the one he was devising at this moment simply would require at least two. Of course, for someone with his expertise this was no big problem, since he would be able to balance out the sequence afterwards, and since this spell was for personal use only he had no real interests in keeping things simple. Savren breathed in deeply and blew out more Aether, then structured it together to form another glyph. He was about to combine it with the Igniter when he suddenly felt that twitch, somewhere in a corner of his head. This made him curious, for he knew that no-one back there would success in gaining an audience with him while he was here unless it was for reasons of the utmost importance. Savren made a mental note on his work, gazed a final time at the starry nothingness around him and prepared for Relocation.

Savren opened his eyes, and found himself back in his study. He always had enjoyed seeing everything again after spending a long time in his personal Shelter, his self-created Strand. All sorts of maps and rarities were stalled out on his massive oaken desk, and even when these were merely an addition to the room's atmosphere rather than actual objects of study he couldn't imagine his desk would be a better workspace without them. He stood up from his chair in which he had Relocated himself and turned around to inspect the massive wall of bookshelves. Again, these were merely to set a certain mood in the room and to impress visitors (and sometimes, he admitted, himself. He was still a material man.) but he always felt good when watching all those leather-bound pages in his possession. There were two fast and polite knocks on the door, and someone entered the room without waiting for Savren to reply. "Master Savren, there is a young…" the man began, but Savren finished the sentence before he could utter another word. "…courier from the Guild of Fleeting Whispers with a package and a message for me. You have any idea what it might be or from who it came?" The servant nodded in negation, and Savren went through the door into the main hall where the courier stood. It was still a young boy, probably still an apprentice who hadn't received his enchantments nor his title yet, and Savren wondered what could be so important and paradoxically unimportant at the same time to let it be delivered by an apprentice. The boy took a moment to catch his breath, which only convinced Savren all the more that this might not have been all that important at all. Panting was something only the beginners of the Guild did. "I bring a parcel and letter from an anonymous employer, are you mr. Savren?"
-"MASTER SAVREN!" the servant yelled, and he would have hit the boy in the face if it weren't for Savren to command him to stop. "My apologies, master Savren," the boy quickly said while handing over the parcel. Savren quickly read the letter, his eyes widening with every line he finished.
He gave the parcel back to the boy. "Bring this package immediately to your Guild's headquarters, and assign one of your finest couriers there to deliver it directly to the Seat of the Two. Say that I sent it and that I'll arrive there as soon as the package is received. Also tell them to NOT open it until I give my permission." The boy quickly repeated the orders and ran away, restoring some of Savren's lost confidence in the Guild. No questions, not even the obvious ones, apparently the Guild still trained its apprentices with some quality in mind. "Fetch my cloak, I've got a dire situation to handle," Savren ordered his servant.