A Lecture On Crystals

"They won't understand any of it."
"They don't have to, they just want to hear you speak."
"I could talk about anything."
"But then they wouldn't learn anything about the crystals."
"You just said they didn't have to understand."
"They can learn without understanding. The tree of knowledge merely requires tilled soil to grow in. You are tilling the soil."
"And your guild is supplying the manure, I assume?"

Rhodan Fishbottoms pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Why did he agree to give a lecture to the students of Ansa`fel's mages guild again? Right. Money. People paid well for his custom enchantments, but small change was tricky to come by. He checked his hourglass, a pure glass crystal that reflected the current time when angled just right, and decided he was fashionably late enough. As he pushed open the heavy doors to the guild, the restless murmur of the students inside quickly died down. All the attention was focused on him. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and let it wash over him. The shiver of anxiety, such a useless emotion, leaving him through the tip of his tail as he floated towards the lectern.

The students were seated in rough semi-circles facing the blackboard set at the back of the guild's lower floor. The usual tables in the center had been cleared aside to make space. As his crystal belt elevated him onto the dais, he reflected on how worthless the lifting crystals would be outside of Ansa`fel. Without the many sedentary crystals around for them to anchor onto, they wouldn't be able to even lift themselves. Sure, he could grow legs, but a wizard must dress to impress. And robes were not his style.

"Good morning," he greeted his attentive audience, "My name is Rhodan Fishbottoms. You may address me as Sir, Master, High Wizard, or, for the duration of this lecture, Professor." He paused for effect. "I will be talking today about the nature of the crystals surrounding Ansa`fel and the Bay of Viir’Nais." A hand shot up into the air. "I will pause briefly after each section to answer any questions. Please raise your hand when I am done speaking," he continued, pointedly looking at the student now sheepishly lowering her hand.

"You may ask your question."
"I, umm, does that include the big one in the center?"
"It will."
"Are the crystals surrounding you-"

Rhodan raised a hand to interrupt her. "The crystals surrounding me are from a variety of sources. Some of them are indeed local. I would ask of everyone-" he let his gaze scan the room, "to refrain from further personal questions."

The room was silent now. Quills prepared to take notes, the more practical students holding a trusty pen or pencil instead. Rhodan took a piece of chalk from the board and held it flat against the blackboard, filling in an area of the board with white as he properly started his lecture. "The Bay of Viir’Nais has been home to the Wode crystals for thousands of years. Before the city was built, before the kingdoms of mer rose and fell, even before I moved in. And during this time, countless individuals have sought them out to solve their mysteries, tap into their power, sell them for infinite riches, and more. It is said the crystals attract those with an affinity to magic towards them, that they warp and corrupt the minds of those that interact with them, that they punish those who fail to properly extract them from the rock with pure chaotic magic."
He put the chalk down and turned back towards his audience. On the board was a perfect rendition of the large crystal in the center of town, the chalk simply falling off where he did not wish it to stick. "Absolutely none of that is true. The true secret of the crystals is…" he allowed the anticipation to linger in the air for a moment, "that there is no secret." He raised his voice to talk over the sudden whispering filling the hall, "The crystals are completely unaligned with any sort of element, school of magic, diety or even basic emotion. It would be hard to even call their power raw magic, since even raw magic shows some inclination towards… something."

A deep silence fell over the room. Rhodan waited a moment to let this new information sink in, then continued. "We all know that magic is heavily influenced by the mind. Wether it is the mind of people, the mind of the land, the mind of a god or the mind of the poor creature that spent the night in the wrong spot and woke up as something else. And just as the mind influences magic, magic influences the mind. Any magically infused crystal will exhibit qualities inspired by its environment. Fire crystals in deserts or volcanos, fae crystals in enchanted forests, crystals of rage and torment deep below ancient battlefields. They exhibit a mind of their own, able to be used in spellcasting and enchanting related to their nature. Somehow, the crystals around the bay are completely free of this influence. With the proper tools, any spell can be imprinted on and empowered by these crystals."
Rhodan scribbled on the blackboard, drawing strange runes that seemed to leap off the blackboard, diagrams slowly spinning as he continued explaining the ramifications of this concept. After he finished plotting out yet another graph with more dimensions than polite company allows, he turned back to his audience.

After a moment's silence, a hand raised to the sky. Rhodan nodded towards the young man.

"With all due respect, professor, unaligned magic is, well, impossible… The crystals have to be aligned to something, perhaps even an unidentified school of magic, perhaps…"
"Has anyone found an alignment for the crystals yet?"
"Well, no, but-"
"To uncover the truth, you develop a hypothesis and prove it. If you keep testing for unknown schools of magic, you will merely learn about more schools the crystal does not belong to. If you instead test to see if the crystal truly does not align to any schools, you will either find your answer or find that a continued search will not be fruitless."
"But unaligned magic is impossible!"
"I know. Yet here we are. Impossible crystals all around us. Don't challenge the world with what you know, let what you know be challenged by the world instead."

Rhodan continued to elaborate on the nature of the crystals for some time longer, boring the students with proofs, history, mathematics,… He knew most of them had already mentally checked out, secure in the knowledge that none of this would be on a test. It barely even applied to their curriculum, study of the crystals a mere exercise in proper lab techniques. Yet among the students, he noticed a few sparkling eyes. Minds opened up to the possibilities, the unexplored mysteries of the world around them. Perhaps they drank in every word he said, or perhaps they vowed with every fibre of their being to prove his ludicrous theories wrong. But he watched as the soil he tilled started yearning for those seeds of knowledge.

As he glanced over at the headmaster, he received a knowing look. Perhaps there was still hope for the dusty old institution of the mages' guilds all across the realm. As long as there were teachers willing to nurture those few bright students that will shape the future.