“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good lad!” she cackled. “You know manners already. Your ma did you well.”
“Sure thing, ma’am.” I smiled. I had been raised well, despite the circumstances. “Would you be Lady Shellica?”
“Aye,” she smiled, and a few of her teeth were missing, “and you will be learning all I can cram into that head of yours.”
“Thank you.”
“You say that now.” She turned around and bounced away with me following closely.
The building was a series of rooms and workshops that looked like cells with doors, the largest of which that I had seen was my now-master’s room. It wasn’t by much. Each room had a small forge that seemed to run on nothing at all. I saw no wood, no fuel, or even actual flames, but I could see the mirage-like waves of heat rolling out of it. Dwarves tinkered and tapped at their creations with precision I doubt I could have mustered on my most focused day. It was so interesting that as I watched a female artisan work on an intricate neck piece, I almost lost Shellica.
She had taken us to a storeroom filled with items and pulled pieces from the shelves after a cursory glance at each. When she felt she had enough, we returned to her workshop room, and she shut the door.
“Here,” she said as she tossed something to me. It was a simple gold ring, no adornments, definitely nothing special. “Enchant that with your strongest enchantment.”
I shrugged and closed my eyes, thinking about the ring. I reached for my magic and began the process of feeding the enchantment in my mind into the ring. When I was finished, I admired my work.
Gold Ring of Lightning Damage
Adds +1 lightning damage to all attacks made by the wearer.
Ring forged by Filgus of the Light Hand Clan and enchanted by Zekiel Erebos.
She snatched the ring out of my hand and observed it, then threw it on her work table.
“That would be decent for the first time, yet that’s all you can manage, yes?” she asked as she peered at me. “You aren’t holding back, are you?” I shook my head dejectedly. “That was highly inefficient enchanting. You didn’t do any of it correctly. It’s a wonder that anything you make gets any kind of enchantment and not fried.”
My face fell a bit, and she must have seen. “Now you know why I said, ‘you say that now.’ I am harsh but fair. Who the hells taught you?”
“Tarron Dillingsley, ma’am.”
“Who?” she asked, and I repeated the name. “Never heard of her. They didn’t teach you to engrave the item? Either by hand or with magic?”
I told her the story about how he had taught me next to nothing, then bailed on me because his pride was hurt. I left out the bit about us being brought here from another world because, well, that would sound crazy, and we didn’t know who could be trusted around here.
“You say he carried a cane? Was it engraved or did it have runes?” I described it to her and noted it did have runes. “Then he didn’t teach you on purpose. How strong is your enchanting skill?”
“Level 11, ma’am.”
“All on your own? And with almost no skill to speak of!” She clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, lad, there’s hope for you yet! Pay attention.”
She held out a ring of her own, and I saw that it was identical to the one I had worked with.
“Listen and observe.”
She held the ring out and focused on it. “When you enchant without engraving, you leave no path for the magic to follow and thus must saturate the item with magic to a greater, less efficient extent. More magic is always better, most would think, but you would be wrong. The spell itself and the engraving you use are everything. Now, there is no specific way to engrave. Some prefer to use tools if they have the skill for it. Some can use magic to do it. Some can use sheer will alone to perform the greatest enchantments, although that is rare, and I have seen it only once. An engraving gives a path to the magic and compresses it, giving the spell you have in mind form, shape, and strength.
To do so with magic, the way I am, takes about the same mana as simply using the spell and saturating the item in it. If you have the time, which you will while you are with me, you will prepare your items with engravings beforehand. Attend the ring.”
As I watched, lines began to develop in the ring. Small at first but increasing in length, and they became more and more bold. They looked to be forks of lightning arcing from clouds to the center of the ring, then to the other side in a mirror image. The engraving finished, and she shut her eyes and focused. The ring began to glow with a muted light in her palm for a moment. Once she was finished, she handed the ring to me, and I shouted in alarm.
Ring of the Storm
All spells with lightning element cast by the wearer cost 25% less mana.
Ring forged by Filgus of the Light Hand Clan and enchanted by Grandmaster Shellica of the Light Hand Clan.
“That’s with no preparation and poor quality materials,” she said. “No, you can’t have it. Give it here. You have to let go, boy.”
I grudgingly let go, and she tossed the ring into her forge.
“Fuck!” I shouted as I leapt to try and get to it. She tripped me, and the heat melted the item quickly.
“That was entertaining. Now we start your training.”
I spent the next two hours showing her I was absolute shit at engraving with tools. She enquired about my mana pool, and I told her that I had three hundred ninety MP. She nodded her head and told me that I could do it with magic, but it would be some time before I could magically engrave and enchant at the same time.
“Does the engraving matter to the spell?” I asked suddenly, the thought striking me. Most of my enchantments has been successful due to instinct. If that was the case, I was screwed if I messed up that part.
“The act of engraving is what is important to the enchantment,” she began. “The engraving itself, as far as how it looks, doesn’t necessarily matter, although having a ring with a fire enchantment engraved with water symbols might be confusing. There is a theory that if an enchantment is given over to an engraved item with an odd engraving, it might weaken the spell. I’ve never taken the time to actually study it in depth, but I would suggest that you try to keep the engraving in line with what you want for the spell. At least for now.”
That made sense, surprisingly. My last ‘tutor’ had hardly given the effort to explain anything like that.
Asshole.
“I want you to take this ring and engrave it,” she said and handed me a ring made from copper. “Copper is a good starting metal. Takes less mana to actually engrave than other metals. Think of a spell you would like to try, and then use pure mana to engrave the metal in a suitable manner. Take your time, and do not enchant it yet.”
The only thing I could really think of was the ring she had just wasted, so I started there. I reached for my mana, then brought it through my fingertips and into the ring. I tried to get control of the flow of it, since I was just used to letting the magic go on its own. It was a little difficult, but I was able to manage it. I thought of my magical energies spinning, like a diamond engraving tool that I had seen back in my own life. I always did love watching videos of people making things, even though I never had the talent myself.
I never was all that artistically talented. Don’t judge me.
The mana I envisioned spun and touched the metal, carving into it slowly before fizzling out, my concentration broken by my joy at success. I sighed, then began again, working in the same groove I had made before, then expanding. I figured something simple would suffice, at least at first, to test the waters. The going was slow, but I managed to copy her design at least for the bottom half of the ring. It took my mana running dry three times and a throbbing headache—but it was done.
Shellica looked over my work with a critical eye, grunting, and a few “tsk” sounds could be made out before she handed it back.
“Your lines are shoddy, the depth of the engraving varies, and overall, your m
ana control is sloppy,” she said, finally smiling at me, “at best.”
“Then why the hell are you smiling at me?!” I cried with my hands in the air.
“Because that can be worked on!” she cackled. “Do you know how many of my clan struggle at that until they give up and go to using real tools?” She looked me in the eyes, then smiled. “ALL OF THEM!”
She rushed around the room grabbing more items, setting them down, then finally grabbing what she wanted to find. “AHA!”
She sat a crystal in front of me, then tapped it, “This is what you will be working with. Fill it with your mana, then take it out again. The crystal is an extension of your mind, your body, and your mana. Do it now.”
I picked up the crystal and tried to look into it. I’d read books where people had done the same thing to work on their magics, and I was having some serious trust issues here. I couldn’t believe that this was an actual thing that people could do.
“It’s hollow. Stop being a pussy and do it,” she shouted, her old voice commanding.
I reached for my mana again and tried to push it into the crystal. The crystal lit up a gentle blue, then turned red and shocked me. I dropped it, and the Dwarven lady guffawed so hard she fell on her ass.
“I can’t… haha, believe—hahaha—you fell for that!” She struggled to breath for a moment, then got to her feet.
My cheeks burned so hot, I was surprised my fur didn’t burst into flame. I stood and brushed my lap off then turned to leave.
“Where—hic—do you think, you’re going, boy?” she panted. She was standing now and had laughed herself into having a hiccup fit.
“I won’t be made a fool of for wanting to learn,” I fumed and kept walking.
The door in front of me was locked tight, and I turned to see a smile on the Dwarven woman’s face.
“Ease your mind, boy,” she cooed. “There is a way, but an old woman has to have her fun, you know?”
I growled at her and clenched my jaw. I really wanted to do the crystal thing! My inner nerd was raging so hard right at that second, I was worried I might swing at her.
“Come here.” She held her hands out and motioned me to her.
I counted to ten, then twenty before I finally stepped forward toward her stupid fucking face. I stopped in front of her, and she made me kneel down in front of her. I did as she motioned and knelt down. At this height, I was still a little taller than her as she stood, but she could reach.
“Do you know what I am, Zekiel?” she asked softly.
“Clan leader?”
“And?”
“Crazy?”
She cackled and kissed my cheek.
“I like you, boy.” She beamed at me. “I’m a high priestess of the Mountain. I know who you and your party are, the same as he does. I knew you were coming, and I—and my clan—will aid you how we can. With that in mind, the Mountain, Fainne, in his wisdom, has asked I grant you a boon. This is my gift to you, a little extra kick in your reserves.”
I felt a warmth as she completed her last sentence. The sensation started at my temples, then pushed inward, growing warmer and warmer. As the sensation traveled slowly down my body, the feeling turned from calming to uncomfortable—then to straight up painful.
I grunted in pain and felt the heat rip through my body, the same way my mana felt when I called to it but in reverse. Heat filled my entire being, dripping through my veins like molten lead. It hit my mana pool, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mana bar dropping rapidly. Once it hit zero, my health started to drop as well, albeit slower than my mana.
I didn’t try to man up and bear the pain, I screamed. I roared so loudly my throat felt like it should have been bleeding—then nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I. Was. Nothing.
There was nothingness about me, black as far as I could see.
“Welcome, tiny Druid,” greeted a voice behind me. I “turned” to look, and there was a Dwarf made of pure mithral. His beard was gold, and his eyes cut from emerald. He was bald and had a small smile peeking through his beard.
“This gift,” he started, “is not a gift I give normally. My children don’t take well to magic, something about how I made the Dwarves in the beginning made them less drawn to the magics of the world, but some do. These ones I grant the boon of more mana and a Molten Core. I can’t give you the Molten Core because it would interfere with your elemental magics, so you will have to do without.”
“Then what was all that heat?!” I gasped at him, then gasped at my outburst. “Sorry.”
“Baaahahahaha,” the God laughed and clapped a hand on his knee. “I like you, tiny Druid. Don’t apologize for that. That was the Forging—you’ve been told the story of my making my people. I made only a select few with mana pools, and in order to do so, I had to forge their mana pools inside them. What you experienced was a minor version of the process that takes the mana pool in a Dwarf and deepens it. With this, you’ll be able to hold more mana. That was actually little Shellica’s idea. My gift to you is to deepen your understanding of engraving. I can’t increase your levels in enchanting, not really my thing, but I can do this.”
He hadn’t moved, but somehow, he was closer, and his great hand cupped the top of my head. Much like when I learned a new spell, knowledge seeped into my brain, and I knew that engraving was something I could easily do now. Before, my hand wouldn’t let me. Not for lack of trying—I had been attempting to draw my whole life, and to be honest? I’m absolute shit.
No, no. Don’t feel bad for me. Everyone has their gifts. Drawing and things that involved relating the beautiful bounty in my mind to paper by hand was always doomed to be crap.
So I couldn’t engrave by hand, but magically? I could definitely do that.
“I hope that this will assist you,” he grunted and patted my shoulder. “You will do well to have your friends with you along the Way. Work hard, fight well, and drink with friends. Goodbye, tiny Druid. I’ve been away from my post long enough, and the others call to me.”
He pushed me back, and I felt that I was falling. The black nothingness around me turned grey, then lightened further.
“… boy…” said an older voice. “BOY.”
I grunted and sniffed before jolting upright. I sat there and looked about with bleary eyes. The room was the exact same as it had been when whatever happened had happened.
“Finally back, eh?” The old coot chuckled at me. “Thought you had gone to the Mountain.”
“I did,” I said and rubbed my aching head. “He’s a really nice guy.”
“So he came to you, did he?”
“He sure did, let me in on some trade secrets, too.”
I stood up slowly, then walked to the desk and sat down on a stool there. It was a bit short for me, but standing made me a little woozy. I picked up a ring, again the same kind we had been playing with, and thought of a design I wanted to press into it. That’s right, press. I pictured the image and reached for my mana.
My mana didn’t feel any different to me, not at first, but I did notice that the pool to take from was larger. Significantly larger. I looked at my mana bar and saw that I now had four hundred forty mana rather than the three hundred ninety I had before.
“Thank you,” I whispered to Shellica, careful not to let my concentration slip.
I held the ring up at eye level and closed myself off to my surroundings. I brought my mana to my fingertips, and it began to weave itself into a net-like pattern that narrowed at the bottom of each loop. As it finished weaving, I slipped the net over the ring and began to pull the mana so that it would sit against the metal and heat it, then pulled the mana tight like a noose. The pure magic I had woven heated where it touched and laid the design I wanted. When I finished, I had next to no mana, but the design was perfect.
Shellica looked it over while I rested and let my reserves recover. I was drenched in sweat and starving, but that level of control was something that even I felt
was unreal. It totally wasn’t me—it was divine.
Using it felt like cheating, and I hated to do it, but the longer I was here, the more I realized there was more at stake than my gamer pride. Sometime, at some point, I was going to have to make a hard decision—be willing to cut the corners and take the cheats where I could to protect what I held dearest, and even if I hated myself, I would do it and live with it because I had to.
My mana had recovered fully as I had fallen into my own mental ramblings and moral conundrums. There would be more time later before I went to sleep, just like in my own world. At least that never changed.
I cleared my mind and began to focus my will and intent before I reached for the mana. Once I touched the astral substance, it turned into molten liquid, and I brought it through my body and into the engraving. The mana flowed evenly and slowly, seeping into the design as it ate away at my mana reserves. I kept my focus and continued to pour my mana in until I was spent. I had filled the engraving enough to power the spell, but a nagging feeling kept telling me not to stop.
I examined the ring, saw the stats, and was thoroughly impressed with myself. +2 to flame attacks was the highest I had done so far.
The old Dwarf reached out expectantly, and I let her have my work. I was proud of the work I’d done and puffed my chest up, just a little, so that she could tell me how well I did.
“Terrible.” She turned and tossed it into the furnace. There was an actual physical pain in my chest that told me my worst fear in that moment was true. She had to be a sadist.
I roared and rushed toward her. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but it would be violent. She cackled at me and held her hand up, her bracelet sparkled, and then a shield burst from it and stopped my fist cold. It may have actually broken a bone in my hand. I roared again, in pain this time, and scowled at her.
“What did I tell you about using too much mana?” she asked. “Typical beginner, needs to put all the mana they can into the enchantment. Thinks it could have been stronger with more. Bull-headed fool! It’s the engraving that matters and the perfect amount of mana. That could have been doubled if you had used the right amount!”
Into the Light (Axe Druid Book 1) Page 28