"Let us begin with the most common cause of young initiates losing their fingers or knocking themselves unconscious," Mage Brown said, starting his lecture off without meandering. "Spell troubles. That will be the primary focus of this class; if it had a subtitle, it would be 'how not to get blown up by my own spells'. Can anyone tell me what an improperly cast spell could result in? This question has so many answers that listing them all is impossible, mostly because they are still finding new, freakish phenomena that can be brought about by someone messing up a spell. I just want some examples. You there, blonde girl with the ringlets?"
"Eh?" The teenager, maybe a few years younger than me, squeaked. "Uhm, it could just … vanish? The spell effect, I mean."
"Yes, excellent, that is in fact the most common and why most mages haven't lost fingers to miscast spells," Mage Brown said, waving a hand, and a small ball of fire shot off from his hand, bursting into a cloud of embers a few metres away from him. "I'd intentionally miscast that spell. All it would have caused me, at worst, would be some light burns across my skin, or maybe it would have singed my robe and cost me a few gold coins. These things are damned expensive, by the way, take good care of them! Anyone else with another answer?"
"Explode?" It was a boy who answered this time.
"Yes," the teacher said. "Many spells explode, but we want them to explode when and where we want them to. It is most common with more violent spells, such as combat spells that use raw arcane or fire magic. You will rarely, if ever, see a frost spell explode. They tend to shatter at worst, which is partially why it is the safest type of combat magic available to most of us. Overcharging a spell, or messing up the mana containment on it, is the most common cause, but it would surprise you how easy it is to create a mana feedback loop if you mess up the mana flow in your spells. Even a simple Clock spell could blow up in your hand if you mess it up the right way, or rather, the wrong way. Alright, anything else?"
"That runaway spell thing? I once saw a mage's animated broom try to beat him up! Does that count?" One of the younger kids answered this time.
"Very much so," the teacher replied with an amused smile. "It is most common with spells that conjure some effect or object separate from the mage. The Automated Broom spell is a good example, but so is Mage Light, Mage Hand or even the Blizzard spell. It can go from something harmless like your Mage Light darting off into the distance and tearing free of your control, all the way to a massive magical hailstorm that syphons mana from the air to maintain itself for weeks on end. Magical Safety is about preventing mistakes that could result in such things from ever happening, but the 'containment' part of this class's title is there because we will also learn about dealing with the consequences of our own, or other mages' mistakes."
From there, Mage Brown showcased everything he had talked about. He went through a massive list of common spellcasting mistakes and what results they could have on the spell before demonstrating them himself. It was pretty awe-inspiring. I knew how to cast spells well because I was a dirty cheater, but he not only knew how to cast all these spells perfectly, but he also knew where he had to make slight alterations to achieve the desired results. He was miscasting each spell he showcased in a dozen specific ways, and I had a good enough sense to perceive exactly what he was doing. His mana control was almost as good as mine, and he knew his spells inside and out, understanding exactly what every rune and shape did and what would happen if he altered them this way and that.
I absorbed the unending stream of knowledge pouring out of his mouth like a sponge, and my bullshit magical hack Powers were already busy internalising this new information. Just like that.
"But all these effects can occur even if you cast your spells perfectly. Can anyone tell me why?" Mage Brown asked, looking around intently, and it took a few seconds for the dazed novices to snap back into the present. I could see that most of their heads were close to bursting from trying to memorise all this new information. Even the pervasive noise of pencils scratching on paper came to a slow halt. "No? Well, as unfortunate as it is, just because we are all mages doesn't mean we will always see eye to eye. Magical duels happen every day all over Dalaran, and on a larger scale, the human Kingdoms often employ royal court mages in wars. Which is when you will find yourself face to face with your most dangerous foe: another mage. I'll require a volunteer capable of casting a combat spell for this next part. Any takers?"
A handful of hands went up, and the teacher selected a gangly boy looking a few years older than me. He strolled down the stairs with a confident gait, standing across from Mage Brown and looking to him for instructions.
"What's your name, initiate?" Brown asked, hands clasped behind his back.
"Daniel Colby, sir," the boy answered, sounding strangely stiff. Did he have some kind of military background?
"No need for that," Brown said, waving him off. "What combat spell do you know?"
"Arcane Missile and Blast," Daniel said, puffing out his chest a bit.
"Good," Brown said, nodding. "I'm going to ask you to cast an Arcane Missile at me, try to make it as close to perfect as you can. Slow and careful, no chance of a miscast. Whenever you're ready."
"What should I aim it at?" Daniel asked, and the teacher just waved a hand, and I jolted. He'd cast that spell so quickly I wouldn't have caught the flash of mana leaving him had I been limited to a regular reaction speed. As I was, I caught it all. Some kind of a transmutation spell?
As if to answer my question, a humanoid statue made of hardened dirt rose up from the sandy floor of the podium.
Daniel squared his shoulders and frowned seriously, arms held out before him. Mana coated his fingers as they carefully flowed through somatic gestures. Two seconds later, a neat bolt of mana shot off in a straight line at the dirt statue and blew a sizable chunk of its head off.
"Very good," Brown said approvingly. "Now repeat it, but beware, I will be attempting to disrupt your spell as any competent hostile mage would. Try to keep the spell structure from collapsing and the spell under your control."
Daniel stiffened and remained tense even as he went through the gestures again. Mage Brown didn't move, but I could see thin threads of his mana shooting out of him and burying themselves into Daniel's spell structure. Some of them just got stuff all tangled up, while others suffocated mana channels or acted like new ones that disrupted the mana flow in all sorts of harmful ways.
Daniel started to sweat, some of the mana leaking from his spellweave at points, while parts began to unravel. In another second, the entire structure came apart at the seams, disappearing with a showy explosion of mana that threw Daniel on his ass but did no more harm.
I was pretty sure I had an Upgrade Power to negate this problem for myself, making my spellcasting and their resulting spells inviolable. Counterspells and efforts to disrupt my spellcasting should just harmlessly bounce off of me. Still, it was fascinating, and I was very interested in learning how to replicate what Mage Brown was doing.
"Thank you for your assistance, Daniel. You may retake your seat," Mage Brown said, turning back to the class while the slightly ruffled boy hastily made his way back to his seat. "As you've just seen, even someone with a respectable level of skill in controlling his mana could have their spells disrupted, even the ones they are most familiar with. It is crucial that in these cases we learn when to give up on a spell and how to protect ourselves from the backlash when it inevitably goes haywire. For example, young Daniel could have discharged the mana in his spellweave as a harmless cloud of arcane energy instead of waiting for it to blow up in his face. There are dozens of ways to minimise or mitigate the damage when it happens, and we will be spending the rest of this afternoon learning some of the easiest ones."
He projected an illusory copy of Daniel's Arcane Missile spell structure, and then proceeded to go over all the ways he had messed with it and what result they had, then gave us some ways to work around a hostile mage trying to do the same to our spells. Keeping a small film of mana around your spellweave while you built it was a quick, dirty and expensive solution that also cost you a lot of focus that could have gone to the spellweave, for example. Another method was using extra threads of your own mana to do some counterinfiltration work while simultaneously constructing your spell. If you couldn't swat aside incoming threads in time, you could always try to pry them out by doing a quick arcane surgery on your spell structure, but that was liable to fuck your weave up even more than it already was if you didn't know what you were doing.
But he'd told us to instead go with just flushing out all the mana from the spell structure in a safe way, then start over. That was the safest route, and the one that couldn't really fail. The downside? The spell you were casting went down the drain, and you would have to start from scratch. Still, we were novices. Most of us would only have to deal with messing up our own spells and not hostile mages putting a spell through our heads if we wasted a few seconds in combat. Safe, easy and reliable was the best. Well, for the others it was. I was drinking in all the information I could, already coming up with a dozen ways I could disrupt my own spells if I saw an enemy mage cast them.
When the practical part came, he had us come down to the podium and line up in groups of five, spaced a few metres apart. Each of us was holding a half-finished spellweave in our hands while Mage Brown continued flicking those annoying mana threads of his. Fun fact: if I let him, then he could mess with my spell structures. My magical theory told me it was for cooperative ritual casting, but it was also useful for not looking too out of place.
So yeah, I was strangling those nasty little mana serpents every step of the way as I weaved the Arcane Missile spell's structure into place. My multitasking capabilities and reaction speed were both pretty superhuman, so I was having a much better time than … anyone else, really. Only my first attempt had blown up in my face, and even that only because my stupid, arrogant ass didn't think I'd actually fail to finish the spell despite Brown's disruptions, so I was a moment too late to flush out the mana.
I had to flush the next three attempts down the drain, but I'd managed to finish the fourth one just barely, and I only continued to improve from then on. I felt Brown's attention linger on me when I successfully cast the first spell, and then, of course, he upped the difficulty when I did it again.
A thread of mana snaked through my spell structure, a bit too quick and slippery to catch, and it just continued crawling through the structure like a maggot, not doing much of anything besides annoying and distracting me. Then it jumped out of the structure and leapt right at my face.
"Eeeeep," I squealed, my spell forgotten as my hand snapped out faster than any human's should be able to. I swatted the mana thread out of the air, but then my spell had already gone critical from another two disruptions, and then it was blowing up in my face again.
I stared at the teacher, my hair ruffled and blown all over the place. The blast was harmless, but I probably looked like I'd just walked through a hurricane. Why is this bastard looking smug!? Do you have no shame?
"What's your name, novitiate?" Mage Brown asked without stopping his efforts to ruin the other novices' days.
"Evelyn Lavere," I said, patting down my hair a little to keep it from looking like a bird's nest.
"You have previous education in the arcane?" He asked. "I don't think I recognise the Lavere name, not from around here?"
"What I know is entirely self-taught," I said, maybe a bit more standoffish than I should have been. In my defence, having your spells continuously messed with was extremely frustrating. "I managed to get my hands on a small library's worth of books from Dalaran, but never had any actual mentors or teachers before today."
"Truly?" He asked, an eyebrow raised not quite in doubt, but perhaps incredulity. He stared at me for a moment, searching for any sign of falsehood, then huffed and shook his head softly. "Then you have truly tremendous talent for the arcane arts, and I can only thank fate, or perhaps the Light, that you have found your way to us. Work hard, Novice Lavere; talent is worthless by itself without experience and hard work."
He went through the line, complimenting some of the others while pointing out ways they could improve, tricks they had forgotten about or things to watch out for. A few minutes later, we were sent back to our seats, and the next group of five was called down.
Mage Brown spoke up maybe twenty minutes later, clapping his hand and magnifying the sound with a neat little spell I instantly copied to make it reverberate throughout the auditorium. "That's it for today. Do not practice by yourselves. I have made it so that any disruption I make will, at worst, throw you on your asses, but if you just try to mess with each other, someone is bound to lose a finger. Understood? Good. Dismissed!"
I waited for most of the other students to leave before turning to Azavie, who was sitting next to me and suddenly looked a bit nervous. "We should probably leave? Look for some other place to talk?"
"There is a lounge near the dorms," she said, blinking quickly. "I agree. I wouldn't want to be a nuisance to a Master Mage."
I noticed that some of the others stared at Azavie not unlike I was probably staring, those were likely the ones who'd never seen an elf before. Well, I doubted high elves ever ventured outside their kingdom, with only a small fraction of them, the most progressive or adventurous ones ever making the journey, even to Dalaran and even that only because it was a Magiocracy. The rest, though? They ignored her and focused on just getting out of the auditorium. To them, an elf was probably a somewhat rare but not an unusual sight.
I followed my supposed guide for a bit, keeping up with her as she speed-walked away from the crowd, only slowing down once we were out of the thick mass of bodies. She visibly relaxed at that, and I noticed that I had, too. Huh, I guess both of us disliked crowds?
"In here," Azavie said softly, guiding me down a few turns and then heading into a large open room. It was filled with comfortable furniture, a few tables and even what looked like some kind of a gaming board I couldn't make sense of. "Barely anyone uses these lounges."
"Neat," I said, just standing next to the slightly shorter girl awkwardly. "So, uh, what did you want to talk about?"
"You are not human, are you?" She asked, turning to face me, crossing her arms, her eerie, pupilless blue eyes seemingly staring into my soul.
"Neither are you," I said after a moment, unable to come up with a way or reason to deny it. There were no vampires in this world — yet, the Scourge would make some, but that was at least ten years into the future, so nobody would have any prejudice against me just because of my race. Hopefully. I was technically still an undead, though barely, and those very much existed here.
"You're not an elf either, nor anything I know of," Azavie said, though she didn't sound suspicious, or accusatory, just … curious. Like she couldn't help but want to unravel a mystery she's stumbled upon. "What are you?"
"Did you offer to be my guide just to interrogate me?" I asked wryly.
The white-haired girl blinked, then her eyes widened almost comically. "N-no! Sorry, I mean, apologies, I have gotten ahead of myself. You just- you feel at home. Sitting next to you was like being back in Silvermoon and feeling the closeness of the Sunwell. I was just- please forgive me, my curiosity got the better of me. I just wished to make your acquaintance."
"Because I feel like the Sunwell?" I raised an eyebrow, trying to look unimpressed even if I was barely hanging on by the skin of my teeth, trying to hold out against the cuteness. Her ears were drooping, and her large blue eyes always looked misty, as if she were about to cry. Agh. I couldn't. I give up. "Alright. I suppose that's fine, but then you'll have to forgive me for entertaining it only because I've never met an elf before."
"Okay," Azavie said, perking up instantly with a small, pleased smile. "We can learn about each other and satisfy our mutual curiosity. I would be pleased with that arrangement."
"I guess, so am I?" I said, not really sure what to make of this girl. "We'd better get comfortable, I guess, might as well make use of all this furniture instead of just standing around."
She just nodded, and I couldn't help but stare a little at the strange way she moved; it was almost like she was flowing through the air. Ethereal, I suppose that was the right word, or maybe it was just some instinctive gracefulness that came naturally to the High Elves? No, for all I know, she's grown up practising how to move so elegantly five hours a day all her life. I shouldn't be so quick to dismiss it as an instinctive thing.
I sat down on a sofa next to the one she chose, which was diagonally aligned. Which is when she went right back into awkwardly staring at me, fidgeting with the hem of her robe while sitting all prim and proper.
Guess I'll speak up then? "Would you still be willing to show me around the city? I wasn't lying about arriving just yesterday."
"I wasn't doubting that," Azavie said hastily. "And yes, I would be willing. I was supposed to make some acquaintances now that my official education has begun."
"'Supposed to'?" I raised an eyebrow at her curious wording.
"Mother said it would do me some good to have some companions who are of my own age," Azavie said, then blinked and refocused on me. "But … I've heard how horrible it is for those who make friends with humans only for the humans to wither and die before the elf is even a full adult. So I have to ask, is … your kind long-lived?"
Why do I feel like I'm at a job interview? I thought absently, but the question was actually quite reasonable. It thankfully wasn't one I'd really need to worry about in the short term, and maybe not even in the long term if Amy and Vicky were up to being turned into vampires.
"My kind are ageless," I said after thinking it through. "And I am practically immortal. Can you feel me drawing in the ambient mana like a magical sinkhole?"
"You're doing that?" Azavie blinked, her eyes narrowing as she tried to focus on the air around me. "Faintly? I can only feel the mana gathering around you, but I've assumed that it was just one or two lesser arcane elementals that have taken a liking to you."
"Oh, there is that too," I said, gently poking one of the somewhat sentient blobs of mana hopping up and down on my shoulder. They were pretty easy to ignore, since they didn't really do anything besides stick to my side and hop around. "Well, that inflow of mana will continue even if my body were to be destroyed, slowly rebuilding it over time. You don't need to worry about me dying on you."
"I see, excellent," Azavie said, smiling happily. "I've never heard of any magic like that, however. Is it unique to your kind? May I ask what your kind are called?"
"We have a few names, but vampire or vampyr is the most common," I said. "Not that I am much like my regular kindred. I would very much appreciate it if you treated me as an individual and not just a member of my species. Especially when some of them crop up in the future and make an atrocious first impression of our kind for the rest of the world."
"You don't seem to think much of them? Your kindred?" Azavie leaned forward, blue eyes sparkling with curiosity. Just how old was she? She looked maybe a year or two younger than me, but with elves, you never know.
"My kin need to drink the blood of others to survive," I said, dryly, then hastily continued when Azavie flinched back, her face paling. "But I don't! I can just subsist off of ambient mana, which is what I'm doing now. I can promise you now I won't drink the blood of anyone in this city, no matter what."
" … in this city?" Azavie asked her wariness dimming but not disappearing.
"It still tastes good," I said, averting my eyes. "And helps in other ways. I can't regulate my mana inflow, but I can drink more blood."
"And who were you planning to extract it from, if not anyone in this city?" Azavie asked, taking the information surprisingly well.
I shrugged; there was no point in lying. "Trolls."
"Oh, alright then!" Azavie said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Trolls. It will do them some good, finally having someone hunting them for a change."
It was my turn to reel back at the venom in her voice. "That sounds … personal?"
"Huh?" Azavie blinked owlishly at me. "No? It isn't. They are just … Trolls. You know? Have your kind never encountered them?"
"If we have, I haven't heard of it," I said carefully.
"You'll understand it when you meet one. Savage beasts." Azavie huffed dismissively. "Very well. I suppose I shall trust your restraint and the wisdom of the Mages who have allowed you entry into the city."
"Thank you," I said awkwardly, making the girl grace me with an acknowledging nod. "So what else do you want to know? Wait, isn't it my turn to ask?"
"I wasn't aware we were taking turns," Azavie said in apparent confusion. "But you may ask your questions, and I'll do my best to satisfy your curiosity."
"So," I started, drawing out the word because I was drawing a blank now that it was actually time to ask a question. "Uh, how come you're stuck here with us in the novice courses if you have parents who could teach you magic?"
"Mother thought it would be an 'enriching experience' of some sort to go through the education system from the ground up, even if I'd have my advantages, having already been taught the basics," Azavie said. "Father just dislikes favouritism and agreed on the basis that I shouldn't get to skip the novice exams."
"Huh, is that why you know your way around the hallways and the dorms?" I asked. "You actually live here despite having a house in the city?"
"I'm supposed to stay in the dorms during weekdays, but I can return home during the weekends," Azavie said. "Are all your questions so … personal?"
"Sorry," I said, grimacing. "I was just curious how this education system works from the perspective of a Dalaran native. Do tell me to shut up if I ask something inappropriate."
"You haven't," Azavie reassured me. "It was just confusing. The few people who've talked to me so far all asked me about Silvermoon, or whether having ears this large gave me better hearing, or whether I could actually see with eyes like these."
I winced; those last two sounded rather inappropriate to just ask a person you don't even know. Then again, it may have been young children asking those questions, and they had absolutely no filters on them. That was the only situation in which it would be kinda fine.
"I'd like to visit Silvermoon one day," I hummed thoughtfully. "Do you think they would let me?"
"I'm … uncertain," Azavie said, shifting uncomfortably. "I've been told that most of my kind back home are rather distrustful of outsiders. You'd have to ask someone who knows better."
"Alright, thanks anyway," I said. "Anyway, where were we? Ah, you asked about my immortality thing. No, it's not some racial ability, but something unique to me. Most of my kind have to make do with spending blood they've consumed to regenerate wounds, but they can't do that without a heart or a head."
"Similar to Trolls then, just more limited by your blood reserves?" Azavie hummed, looking thoughtful as she nibbled on her lower lip absently. "Does fire negate it the same way?"
Does fire negate Azeroth's version of vampiric regeneration? Fuck me if I know, but it's a pretty safe bet. "There are more than one subspecies of vampyr, so I can't say for sure, but some strains combust like kindling when touched by fire. I'd say it's likely that fire does worse than just disable their regeneration, though silver also works."
Not on me, though, so I wasn't worried about sharing that nugget of information,
"What makes you so special?" Azavie asked, tilting her head curiously. "You've mentioned a few times how you are not like the rest of your kind."
"Luck? Mutation?" I shrugged. "I am like some patchwork of four different species of vampire thrown into a cauldron and merged together. Don't ask me how it happened, I have no idea. I just know that it made me more than the sum of my parts, partially in that I am actually capable of using regular magic and aren't locked into Blood Magic."
"Blood Magic?" Azavie asked. "I don't think I've heard of a magical school like that."
"It's probably super forbidden." I snorted. "And don't worry, the most I know about using it is tracking someone if I have a drop of their blood, nothing else. I think it counts as a subset of necromancy."
"Oh." Azavie blinked slowly, her mouth parting to form a small O. "Yes, then it is very likely to be 'super forbidden' as you said. Don't use it, not even the blood-tracking spell. The Kirin Tor is really serious about upholding the ban on necromancy."
I was almost curious enough to ask where she knew that from, but decided to keep my nose out of what was decidedly not my business.
"Warning received, don't worry, I won't," I said. "Arcane magic is much more interesting anyway, and much less icky."
Not that it would stop me from learning blood magic later down the line. Kindred Disciplines were one part of it, but there were also more esoteric aspects of it, like rituals and stuff; there had to be, though I wasn't sure where I'd go to learn about those. Maybe I'd pop over to Game of Thrones and try to time myself to arrive in Pre-Doom Valyria? Eh, the World of Darkness probably had everything I needed; I'd just have to raid a few Tremere Sanctums and rob them blind. Blood Sorcery was a super cool Discipline wasted on a Clan of absolute twats.
Could I just … eat Tremere himself? He is supposed to be under the Vienna Chantry, trying not to get his soul eaten from the inside out by an angry Saulot.
The cunt deserved it for eating the soul of the one Kindred the Archangels and maybe even God kinda liked. Could I eat Tremere and spit out Saulot's soul? So much of the shit in that world would get better if I could shove him into a young Kindred's body to do a Mithras 2.0 to the Antediluvian.
"Ah, sorry, I got lost in thought," I said, shaking my head and chasing away those distracting thoughts. "Did you say something?"
"No, but I think my curiosity has been satisfied for now," Azavie said. "Would you like to take a walk? I could show you around the nearby streets and the market square. I believe that much should be more than doable before heading back for the curfew."
"Sure, I'd love that," I said, hopping to my feet. "Oh, one last question for the road?"
"Ask away," Azavie said, rising to her feet and tilting her head at me.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"I'm 20, though I suppose you'd want to know what that means in human terms?" She asked, and I nodded. "I am technically considered an adult, but not a proper one. I think humans are considered adults from when they turn fourteen to sixteen, depending on the kingdom, but aren't fully mature until they turn twenty-five. Elves don't reach that fully mature state until we turn one hundred, and I'm going to be considered to be in this half-stage between the two until then."
"Huh, so you're going to be a teenager for eighty more years?" I asked as we set off, me following a step behind my new friend. Were we friends? If not, then it was a work in progress.
"I suppose that word fits as well as any," Azavie said, shrugging softly. "What about you?"
"I'm eternally frozen at 17," I said, smiling a bit. "Though mentally I'm a bit more than twice that."
"I see," Azavie hummed. "Oh, it just occurred to me that you might not enjoy regular food. Do you? I was planning to show you some good food stands that sell reasonably good meals nearby."
"I can eat it, enjoying it is another matter entirely," I said. "Just like how you could technically drink blood without getting sick, but probably won't enjoy the experience."
"I see." She frowned. "That's … unfortunate. Anything else in particular you're interested in?"
"Besides magical stuff?" I huffed. "Architecture, I guess, since Dalaran's pretty unique … and just the feel of the city, I guess. It's like I'm walking in an entirely different world."
"I feel similarly whenever I have to leave," Azavie said. "Silvermoon is similar enough that it too feels like home, though perhaps that's just due to the Sunwell. But everywhere else feels like it's an alien world. I've been to Lordaeron City once, and it … stinks. It was such a mess. No magic anywhere, haphazardly built buildings, dirt, garbage and human waste just flowing down the side of the street and into the stinking sewers. How can they call it the Greatest Human City when Dalaran exists? Have they never bothered to actually visit due to their primitive fear of magic?"
"They are pretty big on the Light in Lordaron, aren't they?" I asked. "Is the Church spreading the fear of magic?"
"Maybe?" Azavie asked with a frown. "I don't know. I don't think so, but the commonfolk might believe that the only kind of 'good' magic was the kind given by the Light. I've heard whispers like that once or twice, but those were just stupid peasants."
"Onto more pleasant topics, flying carpets!" I said. "How expensive are those things? Are there any shops selling them nearby? Oh! What about flying brooms? Is that even a thing?"
"You mean like the floating dust brooms that move by themselves?" Azavie asked, then blinked when I shook my head. "So, a flying carpet, but a broom? I haven't heard of anything like that, it sounds … uncomfortable."
"Yeah, I'd imagine so," I mused, grimacing. "Maybe if you sat at it sideways? There were all these folktales back home about witches flying in the night atop their enchanted brooms."
"Likely some big magical beast getting with the overactive imagination of some bored peasants working overtime," Azavie said thoughtfully. "Witches. Do you think they are even real? The folk tales about them are a bit too widespread from what I heard for them to be baseless, but I know the Kirin Tor's stance is that they are just charlatans and non-magical alchemists at best, peddling herbal remedies."
"I've heard that there are two Covens left, one in Gilneas and another in Kul Tiras," I said. "I'd have to go and check them out to be sure, though, who knows with these things. But I know they existed once and that they used a magic aligned with Nature and not the pure arcane like the one we use."