Taking a few minutes to track down one of the aides in the halls, Korse get’s some breakfast settled on the table and they pause the more serious discussions. All three of them dig in, the exchanged glances and pregnant silences only making the meal awkward. Kori, still feeling spiteful and impish over the matter, takes this time to purposely savour her meal. Ensuring she is the last to finish and both of the elder Kobolds have to wait on her.

  With their meals out of the way, Ortik takes it on himself to clear the table. Setting the stoneware platters with the remnants of their meals off to a side to be dealt with later. Still not entirely certain as to will be doing that.

  “I’m hoping that with our hunger satisfied and a moment to step back from the matter that cooler heads may prevail and we can hopefully speak about yesterday’s events?” Ortik begins, hopeful that this attempt is not derailed as well. “I will start with what may be the most important thing to be said. I am sorry, Kori.”

  It takes her a moment to digest what he had said. There was no smugness, no terse tone, just seemingly genuine remorse for what happened. In the face of his apology there’s really only a single response that she can muster. A response entirely fitting for Kori, and possibly the word she’s said most out of everything else in her life. “Why?”

  “I could give you the easy answer, that I didn’t have a choice. That if I had not sided with the others, I would lose the confidence of the Circle.” His voice raising as he speaks, mirroring at least a little of Kori’s anger. “That I was outmaneuvered by someone who has spent their long life being an utter pain in my tail.” Pausing to calm himself and letting a sigh escape before he finishes speaking, “But I think you know me well enough to see the lie in that.”

  “You said it yourself, I passed according to the rules.” A hint of her earlier venom bleeding through, even if she didn’t want it to. “We all know that you hold the rules above all else.”

  “This would have been so much simpler if I could hide behind their shield as I always have…” Korse’s reaction telling, his mouth gaping slightly as such an admission from Ortik was beyond out of character. Taking a moment to compose himself before he continues. “Believe it or not, I did what I did for you, not to you.” Holding up a hand as he sees her about to interrupt him, the anger on her little face back in full force. “Please, at least let me explain before you rebuff me once again?”

  “Oh, I want to hear this. How could you possibly justify rejecting me as being me?”

  Korse shrinks back from the table as he listens to the pair, confused and trying to keep himself from the middle of whatever is going on between the two. Shocked that Ortik is letting his young charge speak to him in such a manner.

  “Yes. It was. To understand I must tell you a bit about the circle.” Ignoring the youngling rolling her eyes as he falls into his habit of answering a simple question with a lecture. “I will at least attempt to keep it to the pertinent details.”

  “Fine…”

  “As you are aware already, we only take a select few apprentices to join the circle and we are guided to those by our ancestral spirits. Have I ever told you why that is?” Receiving a shake of the head and a circular motion with her hands as though to say ‘get on with it’ in response. “Spiritual magics are unlike those of a mage. Each and every one of us possesses something within our own spirits which resonates with the spirits surrounding us. Some do so powerfully from the day they are hatched, others do so weakly, but the vast majority do so to at least some extent, and in the right conditions that resonance may grow beyond what they began life with.” Giving her a moment to consider his words. “A bare few, are strong enough to bind a spirit and step foot on the path. Less than one in three hundred younglings in fact. These are the ones the spirits guide us to.”

  Seeing a moment where his presence is actually useful, Korse interjects with a fact of his own. “Of the some six hundred eggs that are laid each year, on average less than two hundred and fifty new younglings reach their apprenticeship. Sometimes the Circle is lucky and manages to recruit two in the same year, others they are not and get none for years in a row.”

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  Under her breath, Kori responds to his facts cursing the culling responsible for the paltry numbers of her cohort that survived to unveil their system. Even if their clutch was considered exceptionally lucky, it was still too much.

  “There are many others who be candidates amongst the younglings, but without the strenuous test of the initiation it is near impossible to determine. Testing them blind we wouldn’t even reach a quarter before the next clutch was old enough to be tested.” Trying to impress upon her the difficulty involved in the initiation, “Spiritwalking is difficult when you do it yourself, it takes dozens of shaman to eject a single spirit from the unclassed body of a youngling, and several must maintain the spell for the entirety of the seven days.”

  “There are however ways to tip the balance. Which I took every measure I could to increase your chances of success.” Pointing to several places the shelves around his residence, “Reach out with your new sense and you’ll find this place littered with totems. There are more in the workshop and even the inkwell you’ve been using for the past months is invested with a spirit.”

  Following where he pointed, she can feel the echo of the spirits presence all around them. Darting off to her chamber. Her former chamber. She finds the little inkwell sitting upon the desk where she had left it, radiating spiritual potency unlike any of the others, while giving off emotions of being contented that it was being useful. Like all those before it, there are no changes in her perception of it when she picks the inkwell up, but now that she knows its true contents the weight of it feels tenfold what it used to in her hand.

  As she returns to her place at the table, Ortik continues on, “Exposure over the span of months, preferably while the initiate meditates, is said to be the best method. We unfortunately had to do without the meditative portion.” Still not quite comprehending just how such a bright young Kobold cannot manage to acquire that particular Skill. “It did not work.”

  “So, you’re saying that I wasn’t strong enough in this ‘resonance’ thing? That once again I worked as hard as I could and I never had a chance…” Taking a moment to truly understand what he had just said before her anger returns in force. “And you knew?!”

  “I knew it was a possibility. But I had hope. Even those with a faint hint of resonance should have grown enough after months of this place.” Ortik’s voice now getting heated as well. “But you? Do you know why none of the spirits even bothered to reject you, let alone offer their aid?” His anger growing as he continues, though directed not at Kori, but the world in general. “I Spent the afternoon while you slept spiritwalking to find out,” Mumbling under his breath, “I hate spiritwalking, I’ll have a dull ache in my horns for a week…” Rubbing them gently as he continues to rant, “It was because they didn’t even notice you! Not a single one of them! Even that blasted door just saw the remnant energy of our spell trying to get away from it when you backed up…”

  Shaking his head and continuing on, “You spent months sleeping next to one of the strongest spirits I could manage while still being safe. And the only one of them with the faintest notion you had even been in the room was the light spirit that thought something was fondling its home to try and steal it…”

  “What? Why would I want its rock?” latching onto the least important part of Ortik’s statement. “I’ll admit it was shiny, but its still just a rock…”

  Ortik bringing his hand to cover his eyes, and gently rubbing his scales. “I think you’re missing the point dear”

  “Indeed…” Mirroring the Broodkeeper. “Your resonance isn’t weak, it is non-existent.”

  “But I learned [Spiritual Sense], I must have had some connection or I wouldn’t have even gotten that…”

  “I will admit, that confounded me for some time. It was actually one of the others that suggested an explanation that has merit.” Thinking for a moment before he replies, “Spiritwalker Dvst” Giving a slight shiver as he states his peer’s class. “Proposed that your gaining that skill was not in fact in spite of your… restrictions… but due to them. That where I would rely on my spirits resonance to feel what the lesser spirits were doing; you were forced to take a more… analytical… approach.” A bit of mirth returning to him, “Which is most definitely an apt description of how you tackled the remainder of the rite.”

  Noticing that he chose certain words he used very carefully, “You paused to think of how to say that without offending me. Dvst used some less than flattering words, didn’t he?”

  “They do not bear repeating, let us leave it at that.”

  “You still haven’t explained why you think you did this me. How can getting cut off from my last chance at magic not be the worst option…”

  “Because!” Losing his temper for a moment. “That Scale blasted gob…”

  “Ortik! Language!” Korse interrupts before he can continue on with what were looking to be some very unkind words.

  “Apologies…” Taking a moment to compose himself. “Because I was left with a choice, either end your apprenticeship, or hand it off to someone else for ‘intensive’ training…” The grimace on his face as he said ‘intensive’ showing what he thought of the proposition. “She would have broken you. She wouldn’t care if it worked or not. Either you failed and proved she was right, or you succeeded and proved I wasn’t up to teaching you…” His head drooping and tears sprinkling on the surface of the table. “Either way you would have spent the next two months beaten, battered and abused until you broke, ran, or managed to form a connection with one of the spirits. And after what I found spiritwalking, I knew that that last option was not possible…”

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