The Apprentice’s Path

Chapter 3-1

3

I had to find a way other than signing up to get to that research. If there were any historical remains of alchemically and magically superior civilizations, where could I find them? The first thing you do in any alchemy research project is to talk to people who are familiar with the subject and have read lots of literature on the topic.

So I joined the history club. It was a club known for being the place where all the conspiracy theorists and nutjobs got together to discuss the most outlandish ideas. I knew enough of the official history to know that civilizations superior to ours were not something common knowledge. But maybe this club could help me find something?

The club had ten people, young skinny men, all non-magical. They took me in, although their enthusiasm at having a woman join was probably soured by me being dark arall. They didn't seem to know much about any alchemically superior ancient civilization, but I did get a lot of rumors about how the world is ruled by a secret clique of perfect empaths manipulating everybody through mind magic (seriously — where do they get those ideas from?). When I joined them on Friday for one of the guys' presentations, I couldn't stop laughing through the whole thing. Seriously — magicals controlling the weather and provoking the Great Famine by changing ocean currents? Did they have any idea of how impossible that was? The most anyone could do was make it rain when the clouds were dense enough. Magic couldn't create the clouds, nor the wind that would bring them. Changing atmospheric pressures — tons and tons of very light matter — was an exponentially difficult activity. Magic was more effective the smaller the mass and the smaller the object.

The guys, who had been attentively listening to the speaker (he introduced himself, I think his name was Mike?), weren't too happy with me. At the end of the lecture (I wasn't laughing anymore — my belly hurt too much), one of the guys, the least shy of them, asked me to explain what was so funny. I did. It took me a couple of formulas and five minutes or so of back-of-the-envelope calculations on the blackboard. When I looked at the audience, their eyes were glazy. I think the math just flew completely over their heads. These guys could not understand any description of technology even if it was explicitly mentioned. They had no idea of alchemy.

I would have to do the literature research myself; it seems like there are no alchemists studying history, so nobody with an actual understanding of what's possible, even with magic, was there.

* * * *

Considering my Yllamese ancestry, it wouldn't be too surprising if I found their culture fascinating. And, as the islands where Captain Greggs said the remnants of that civilization were found were Yllamese, I may find something in ancient Yllamese books.

The library had a few books about ancient Yllam, but they all seemed too modern. And, considering how historians seemed to not understand how alchemy works, second-degree accounts of how things worked or what was available would be useless. Ask the average man on the street how the steam engine works — would they be able to explain it? And imagine somebody retells the account of the first person — this time, without ever having seen a steam engine. No, I needed first level accounts.

Archeological studies could work, but the Yllamese did not like excavating the past. The ancestor adoration thing, you know. That's why they didn't let Kalmari archeologists dig in their country either. So I had to find older sources, preferably ones that weren't too hard to access.

"Is there anything, maybe in the archives, about the older history of Yllam? It could even be in Yllamese; I can read it with a dictionary." We had a course in the third year, which I passed by learning mad skills with the dictionary.

The librarian, an elderly woman who wasn't used to energetic researchers who mess her whole organizing by taking all the books out, promised me she would find out whether there were other materials (she probably wanted to get rid of me). I told her I would come back tomorrow and search through the library more intensely if she found nothing. When she recoiled in horror, I knew she would be motivated to find me more sources. Since delegating hard work is all dark arall's schtick (we like to control things, not to do the hard work), I was quite happy to let her do it.