Chronicles of the Untalented

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Silas sat cross-legged on the floor of his small room, a chalk circle drawn carefully around his effigy. The wooden floor beneath him bore faint scratches from past inscriptions—some failed, some erased, and one that had nearly torn the effigy apart. But now… things felt clearer.

His soul no longer wavered under the strain of past wounds. The madness that once pressed at the edges of his mind had retreated, leaving behind clarity—and a quiet, dangerous focus.

He reached for a thin notebook. Its pages were filled with diagrams, calculations, and fragments of magical theory written in cramped, obsessive scrawl. Notes on entropy, radiant pressure, elemental harmonics. All built around one idea: power, used with precision.

"I only get three," he muttered. "So they need to be worth it."

His fingers trailed over the effigy's torso. It looked vaguely like him again—rebuilt and reinforced with dark-path materials, its joints sturdier, its shape less jagged. It waited silently, its face blank.

Not sentient.

Just obedient.

Void Clot came first.

He drew the sigil with care—spiraling runes looping back into each other like a festering wound. A blood-dark glow seeped into the lines. The spell would inject entropy into a target's flesh, accelerating decay from within. It didn't explode or dazzle—it corrupted.

A slow death. The kind no healer liked to touch.

Next came Ashpiercer Bolt.

"Dark and light—elements that resisted each other. But when forced into alignment, they sharpened into something focused and cruel."

It wasn't just a projectile.

It was a warning.

And finally—Mistfang Latch.

He hesitated before the last rune. The spell had taken days of planning, and it still unnerved him. A mixture of water's binding flow and dark path's devouring nature, twisted into a single malicious effect. The rune resembled a jagged spiral flanked by fanglike hooks.

As he carved it into the effigy's side, a pulse of cold spread into his fingertips.

Finished.

He sat back and exhaled, the strain hitting him all at once. A dull ache settled in his chest—not pain, exactly, but the weight of something costly.

Velira entered a few minutes later, her eyes flicking between the effigy and Silas. "Three spells again?"

He nodded. "Better ones."

She raised a brow. "Still look like death warmed over."

"That's how you know they're working."

He said it with a dry smile, but the truth lingered beneath—every spell was a risk. Every rune a gamble. There were no guarantees in this world. Only trade-offs.

"Just… don't go testing them indoors again," Velira added, sitting down beside him. "You still owe the librarian a door."

Silas chuckled and let his head rest back against the wall.

The runes glowed faintly. His new arsenal was ready.

And he had a feeling he'd need it soon.

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