Just a Bystander

Bolts and Bonds

After the duel between Ambrose and Kevan, the night took a turn for the worse. Kevan did not take kindly to being beaten and Ambrose's refusal to explain how he had managed to win made the situation worse. The black-haired youth, usually meek, was uncharacteristically firm. He wasn't rude, but it was clear that he wasn't about to freely discuss his duelling technique. Jerric tried to point out that Kevan had pulled the same thing on everyone else but in the end, Lynus had to physically drag his brother away. He shot us an apologetic look as he ushered Kevan out of the duelling chamber.

It was just Ambrose, Devon, Jerric, and myself now. We sat on the lowest tier and watched as the brothers disappeared through the doors.

I sighed. 'Hope he's less of an ass tomorrow.'

'Don't count on it,' Devon snorted. 'His behaviour so far doesn't exactly advertise sweetness and sunshine. If he were a product, I'd put him back on the shelf.'

'Sorry.' Ambrose looked very downcast. 'I kinda provoked him.'

'No,' I said firmly. 'He's the one who provokes people. He's just sore that you beat him. He obviously thinks he's the best, and you put him in his place.'

'Understatement of the year. You wiped the floor with him!' Devon crowed.

'I don't suppose you'd give us even a tiny hint about what you're doing?' Jerric asked hopefully.

Ambrose bit his lip. 'I... it's best if I don't. But I'm not... special or anything.'

I wrestled down the urge to snort and roll my eyes. Ambrose probably sensed the scepticism and disbelief radiating off me because he looked at me and gave a huff. 'Really, it's nothing special. Okay, look...'

He stood up and turned to face us. 'I'm not going to tell you exactly what I'm doing... but I can point you in the right direction.'

I crossed my legs and sat up straight. Devon and Jerric were likewise listening with rapt attention. Ambrose was a little taken aback at the suddenness of it, but he rallied.

'Uh... okay, so here's a standard bolt sequence.' He pulled a little arcana together and a cluster of glyphs appeared in the air. 'Which parts cover direction?'

'It's just that one.' Jerric threw a red ring around one of the glyphs. 'It makes it go forward.'

'No, that's...' Ambrose frowned at Jerric. 'How do you curve yours?'

I blinked at Ambrose in confusion. 'What do you mean? Don't you know?'

He returned my look of confusion. An awkward silence descended over the four of us.

'Why don't I explain how I arc my bolts,' Jerric said tentatively, 'and then we go from there?'

Ambrose nodded and sat next to us. Jerric didn't stand up and instead opted to narrate from where he sat, using loops of arcana to highlight the relevant glyphs as he spoke.

'So, normally, these bolts have no mass, so gravity doesn't pull on them like actual projectiles. These glyphs control the density of arcana, and we need to introduce a clause here to give it a mass value.'

His modifications went up. 'Then, you add some additional glyphs to the 'forward' one to indicate an angle. That way, it tosses the bolt at an angle, and the bolt then follows a natural arc subject to gravity. We can tweak the mass values and the angles to affect the trajectory. So that settles the top-down arcs. There are other adjustments you can make to the density of the arcana, the launch speed, even the shape, which will all affect the bolt's flight path and trajectory.'

Ambrose nodded. 'I see. I... didn't learn it that way.'

The three of us exchanged surprised looks. It was a pretty standard modification in the student duelling circles. The trouble was learning how much to adjust the values.