Magi of Sinlung [ GameLit Political Fantasy]

The study in Xiaxoan Blues smelled of parchment and the sharp tang of ink. The air thrummed with a quiet intensity as Larin bent over his desk, a faint glow of mana surrounding his hands as he traced runes in midair. But tonight, he wasn't crafting spells or drawing circles of power—he was dissecting something far more elusive: language itself.

He had been working through a question that had haunted him since his encounter with the cosmic magi of House Seafoam. The way they spoke, their words shaped not just reality but perception. He remembered how their very presence seemed to bend the truth without the need for visible circles or glyphs. It was magic, but not in the form he knew.

As he traced his thoughts deeper, Larin made a breakthrough.

Journal Entry:

"Words are spells. Every phrase, every idea, is a construct of rules and structure. Language is a limiter. The moment we define something, we imprison it in form. And what are spells if not definitions? The brackets—[ ]—are not just visual representations of containment. They are the mental shackles of limitation. To break free of them is to rewrite how we engage with reality itself."

He sat back, the weight of the revelation sinking in. The [ ] that framed every spell was not just a tool—it was a cage. It marked the boundaries of possibility. His entire life, magic had been a construct of defined inputs and outputs, locked within the rigid confines of predefined language.

Larin reached out his hand and spoke a simple spell in his mind.

[Firebolt]

A sharp crack of heat and flame burst into existence, flickering between his fingers before fading. The brackets had formed instinctively around the word, containing the magic within its prescribed limits.

He closed his eyes and tried again, this time without invoking the brackets. He felt the shape of the word in his mind, let it linger without enclosing it. The syllables twisted, unruly and wild. A flicker of heat surged again, but this time it lashed unpredictably, searing the edge of his desk.

Tyrs entered the room, her glaives resting casually on her shoulders. She raised an eyebrow as she took in the scorch mark.

"Playing with fire, are we?"

Larin rubbed the back of his neck. "More like wrestling with it."

She moved closer, studying his expression. "You've been quiet since the fight with Mynta. What's going on?"

"It's the brackets," he said, his voice low but charged with energy. "Every spell we cast is contained within them. They're the limiter. But I think... I think we can learn to cast without them."

Tyrs frowned. "Cast without containment? That sounds like a good way to blow yourself up."

"Or to finally break free of predefined structures," Larin countered. "Think of it like this—every spell is a phrase in a language, and every phrase fits within a set of rules. But language itself is more fluid, more violent. Every word is an assertion of reality, a demand that reshapes the world. If we break the rules, we reshape the world on our own terms."

Later that night, Mynta joined them, intrigued by Larin's obsession. She perched on the edge of the desk, her eyes sharp with curiosity.

"So," she said, "how do you plan to break language itself?"

"Through practice," Larin replied. He gestured at the notes spread across the table. "I've been working through the fundamental spells. If we remove the brackets, we remove the artificial limits. But it's not as simple as speaking the words. You have to feel the structure without being bound by it."

"Show us," Tyrs challenged.

Larin took a deep breath, centering his mana. He focused on the simplest spell he knew: [Light]. He held the word in his mind, but this time he refused to enclose it.

The room darkened momentarily, and then a soft, pulsating glow filled the air. It wasn't a sphere of light, neatly contained—it was diffuse, spreading like a mist, illuminating the space in a way that felt alive.

Mynta blinked. "That's... different."

"It's uncontained," Larin said, his voice trembling with excitement. "The light isn't trapped within a form. It flows."

"Can you control it?" Tyrs asked.

"Not fully," he admitted. "Not yet. But that's the point. Control is a cage. What if magic could be guided, rather than forced?"

The three of them spent hours experimenting. Larin explained how Dernporost's principles applied to language and magic alike.

"Think of Divide as breaking a word into its roots," he said. "Every spell has assumptions embedded in its structure. When we deconstruct a spell, we're not just taking apart its magic—we're unraveling its meaning. Combine is putting it back together differently, creating new meanings, new truths."

He took a basic defensive spell, [Shield], and broke it down. Instead of summoning a flat, rigid barrier, he allowed the fragments of its structure to move independently, flowing like water around him. The barrier shimmered, dynamic and alive.

"Fluid Shield," Mynta murmured. "It adapts instead of resisting."

Tyrs tried her hand, using Divide on her own attack spell, [Petal Refrain]. She let the spectral petals scatter, each moving with a will of its own, then recombined them into a spiraling vortex that surged toward an imagined enemy.

"Petal Storm," she said with satisfaction.

They pushed further, applying the concept to perception.

"What about a spell for seeing beyond limits?" Larin wondered.

"Something like [Clairvoyance]?" Mynta suggested.

"More than that. A way to see possibilities, not just locations."

They worked together, crafting a spell they called Foresight Bloom. It didn't show the future in rigid terms but revealed branching paths of potential outcomes, each one a flickering petal in the mind's eye.

As dawn approached, Larin collapsed into his chair, exhausted but exhilarated.

"We've only scratched the surface," he said. "Every spell we know is a prison and a doorway at the same time. The brackets are chains. But with Dernporost, we can break them."

Tyrs poured herself a cup of tea, her eyes glinting with determination. "Then let's keep breaking."