by R. A. Mejia
I stop my stagger towards Vrax and look up at her hovering feminine figure. I stare at Mary and note that she seems a little fuzzy around the edges. I rub my eyes, sure it’s just a little dust clouding my vision. When I look again, I have to consciously focus on the fairy for her image to stay clear.
She shakes her head and tells me, “Stop staring at me and sit down Armon. You’re still recovering from using all your mana at once on that stupid ice spell.”
I think the idea of sitting is a good one and I plop down on the ground. The sunlight still hurts my eyes, and my hands cover my face to block out the light as I sit cross legged on the grass. Without looking up at Mary, I ask, “What happened?”
I feel the beat of her wings as she lands on my shoulder. I can feel the coolness of her skin as she lays the back of her small hand on my forehead. With the sound of pity in her voice, she answers, “At first Kitsune and I were worried you’d hurt yourself with the spell. But when she examined you she found you’d just passed out from mana drain. It happened when you put all your remaining mana into your spell and ended up overexerting yourself.” Then in a less pitying and more sarcastic tone, she adds, “Not the first time a guy has hurt himself trying to impress some ladies. I just didn’t think you’d ever be one of them. Thought you had better sense.”
Ignoring the last comment, I ask, “Did the spell work at least? The last thing I remember is a big burst of heat from above the water.”
Mary sniffs, and I feel a small, light, punch on the side of my head. “Yeah, it worked. You froze the entire trough of water solid. Poor horses are going to have to wait till it melts to get any more water.”
I uncover my face and try to turn my head and look at my fairy friend, excited that the experiment worked so well. Then the light hits me and my eyes sting. I wince, close my eyes, and go back to covering my face with my hands again.
Mary hits me softly again and says, “Stop moving around. You’re suffering the after effects of draining your mana all at once. You’d think you’d have learned your lesson when you froze up during training with Rex. Didn’t he show you what happened when you used up all your stamina? Why would you think something different would happen when you used up all your mana?”
I hear the reptilian voice of Vrax speak in front of me, “Leave brood brother alone. You can see he is in pain. I think he learn his lesson.” I can hear someone moving, and something is placed under my nose, “Here, eat this, it will make you feel a little better.”
The smell of cooked meat reaches my nose, and I peek out between my fingers to see a stick with rabbit meat being offered to me. I take the food and start to eat it, keeping my eyes closed tightly. The food tastes excellent, and it feels better to have something substantial in my stomach. The food doesn’t help my headache or my sensitivity to light, but it still feels good to eat something.
After finishing the rabbit on a stick, I say, “Well, I’m glad my experiment worked. Now I have a new spell I can use. Maybe I can freeze the blood of my enemies or immobilize them in ice?”
I hear Mary laugh and say, “Sure, you could do that. If they stayed still for ten minutes while you wrote your spell and checked to make sure you didn’t make any mistakes.”
“Monsters don’t wait that long to kill you. They move fast.” Vrax adds.
I smile inwardly and tell my kobold compatriot, “She’s being sarcastic buddy. She’s trying to point out that I need to work on writing the spell quickly or it won’t be useful in a fight.”
Vrax seems to consider my words for a moment then he says sagely, “Oh. Then I agree. You should practice. Only way to get good at new skill. Practice.”
“Thanks for the advice. You guys mind leading me somewhere with some shade? The light is killing my eyes.”
I hear Vrax yip and feel his scaly hands touch me. My eyes closed, I stand up and hold out a hand for him to grab. He’s kind enough to lead me forward. I can sense when we get close to the tree because the canopy blocks out some of the light.
I hear Mary say, “Turn around and sit down. We’ve put you next to Kitsune.”
I do as she instructs and sit down. I feel the trunk of a tree against my back and lean against it. While I sit and recover from the mana drain, I take the time to consider my experiment with the ‘remove’ symbol. I’m happy I can create ice now and think about the possible applications. I could use my [Magical Engraving] skill to permanently engrave the arcane symbols to a metal cup or a water skin. Then I could chill any drink. Or I could put larger versions of the engraving on a metal box and make my own freezer. Well, first I’d have to buy a metal cup or a metal box. But once I had them, watch out!
I wonder what other spellwriting symbols I can learn from Lilliandra’s journal. When I consider how learning just one new symbol can create so many new spell effects, I’m sorry I haven’t had time to explore the journal further.
As the consequences of the mana drain fade, my eyes become less light sensitive and the painful headache goes away. Once I open my eyes, I become determined to use the next week of travel time to do some much needed training in the magical and physical skills I have.
I study the journal on spellwriting for the next hour, noting several interesting experiments Lilliandra did. The ones that are most fascinating are her experiments with directional symbols. After learning about the basic arcane symbols, the next phase of her training consisted of learning how to direct the spells in whatever direction she wanted them to go. At its most basic level, an arcane symbol will funnel its power in front of where the spell is written or around the symbol. So if I write the symbol for ‘fire’, it will gather fire right in front of the symbol away from the caster. However, with directional symbols, a caster can direct that energy to another place. It sort of becomes a way to aim the spell. According to the notes in the journal, part of this comes from the caster’s ability to project their aura and manipulate mana. An even more advanced application of this is the shaping of a spell. Apparently, this is how spellwriters are able to mimic effects like fireballs and magic missiles. With enough practice and imagination, they can even shape their spells into things like blades, arrows, or shields.
There are so many directions to take my research into spellwriting, it’s hard to decide what to learn first. I decide that in addition to practicing my spellwriting of ‘remove,' I should also learn the techniques for directing my spells.
Having decided on my magical training for the week, I then consider how I’ll train my other skills. I’ve found in fight after fight that I’ve sorely needed a ranged attack. Mary can fly above the fight and rain spells on our enemies, and I envy her that ability. Now that we have a ranged weapon like the hand crossbow, I should take the time to learn how to use it. From what I remember from history class, the crossbow should be easier to learn how to use than the bow. From what I recall, it takes a lifetime of practice to master the bow, but only days to become competent with the crossbow. The bow has a higher rate of fire and a longer range than a crossbow, but a crossbow can have more power up close. I remember reading something about barely trained peasants killing armored knights with a powerful crossbow because the crossbow could store more energy and deliver it all at once. The peasant only had to aim and pull the trigger. Sort of like how guns made armor irrelevant. The tradeoff for the peasant was that by the time they reloaded the crossbow, another enemy could get in range and attack them.
I wonder if anyone's invented guns on Terra yet. I’ll have to check with Mary. Who knows if gunpowder will even work here?
In addition to learning how to use the hand crossbow, I should advance some of the skills I’ve learned. I review the list of skills and am surprised at just how many there are.
Sneak: Novice 7
Observe: Novice 4
Craftsmanship: Novice 3
Firestarter: Novice 2
Cooking: Novice 6
Spear Mastery: Novice 7
Logging: Novice 5
Workhorse: Novice 4
Carpentry: Novice 4
Construction: Novice 4
Knife Mastery: Novice 3
Herbalism: Novice 7
Sleight of Hand: Novice 3
Search: Novice 7
Shield Mastery: Novice 6
Magical Engraving: Novice 4
Magical Aura: Novice 7
Aura Projection: Novice 8
Mana Control: Novice 7
Alchemy: Novice 5
Unarmed Combat: Novice 3
Climbing: Novice 1
Lockpicking: Novice 3
Animal Care: Novice 1
From the list of twenty-four skills my highest ones are sneak, spear master, herbalism, search, shield mastery, magical aura, aura projection, and mana control. Each of those is at novice level 7 or 8. My lowest level skills are ones that I only recently learned or just don’t use that much. Animal care, climbing, lock picking, unarmed combat, sleight of hand, knife mastery, firestarter, craftsmanship. I’ll already be training magical aura, aura projection, and mana control as I practice spellwriting, so I ignore those. The other high level skills are all ones I use when I fight. While it’s tempting to train those, I’ve noticed I get more experience when I use them in combat. I think it has something to do with the strain of using them in a life or death situation against another trained opponent. Instead, I decide to focus on training useful low level skills, like climbing, unarmed combat, knife mastery, animal care, and craftsmanship. I’d work on lock picking, but I don’t have any locks to practice on. Additionally, I should work on magical engraving and experiment a little on making useful items. It’ll cost me XP every time I engrave something but with careful planning I think it will be worth it.
By the time I’ve finished reading and planning the week’s training, the sun has started to set, and Vrax and Mary have prepared dinner. Kitsune is awakened by the smell of food and joins the rest of us in enjoying a meal of roasted rabbit, fruits, and vegetables. After the meal, we pack up the camp and get the wagon ready for our night journey. While Kitsune and I get the horses hitched to the wagon, Vrax and Mary load up the firewood and food we’d collected. No sense gathering all that stuff every day when we can just carry what we’ve already collected with us in the wagon.
Once the sun is down and it’s full night, Mary conjures two magical globes of light and attaches them to the horse’s chests so they can see where they’re going. She’ll have to renew the spells every couple of hours, but it shouldn’t be a drain on her mana as long as she rests between castings. Once that’s prepared we’re back on the road for another night of travel towards Monstrum.
Chapter 2.5
We make our way towards Monstrum over the next three nights. Kitsune resting during the days and the rest of us training and living off the land. Vrax takes the role of the group’s hunter, providing meat daily for our meals. To help provide balanced meals Mary gathers vegetables, fruits, and herbs. I put the herbs into my inventory so that I can prepare potions if I ever get my hands on an alchemy kit. I, of course, cook all our meals since I have the highest [Cooking] skill of anyone in the group. I create a few new recipes based on the meat and vegetables that are brought in. Including stuffed rabbit, lettuce tacos, Terra fruit salad, and purple carrot smoothie. No one but me seems to like the purple carrot smoothie. Oh well, their loss.
When we’re not gorging ourselves on my culinary creations, we’re all training. When we stop traveling each morning at day, I help Kitsune unhitch the horses and care for them, training my [Animal Care] skill. After that we have a light breakfast, then Vrax and I spar for an hour to improve our [Unarmed Combat] skill. We don’t know enough to do anything fancy, but we can still practice the few kicks and punches we know. Mary wants to join our training but [Unarmed Combat] just doesn’t suit her. She’s more than quick enough to avoid our strikes, but her strength stat is just too low to do more than a single point of damage when she lands a hit. After her first bout, Mary decides her time is better spent working on honing her magical combat skills. She summons her pet wolf, Mr. Snuggle Butt, and they go off into the woods to work on battle tactics. Sometimes when she comes back, she has some meat to add to what Vrax has hunted for the day.
After having breakfast and sparring with Vrax, I research and practice spellwriting. I practice spellwriting the ‘remove’ symbol. I find that it’s getting easier, but it’s a slow process still. The research, however, pays off big time. It turns out that the directional symbols in spellwriting are actually just added in three-dimensional space to direct the flow of the spell. For instance, adding a directional symbol in front of the arcane symbol for ‘fire’ will direct the gathered fire to that side of the symbol, away from the caster. Writing that directional symbol behind the ‘fire’ symbol would gather that fire towards the caster. The same could be done for any space around the arcane symbol. What I found to be exciting about this is that the directional symbol doesn’t have to be touching the main arcane symbol. I experimented with this idea by first writing the symbol for ‘fire’ and then adding the directional symbol two inches to the left of the main ‘fire’ symbol. The fire gathered in its normal position in front of the ‘fire’ symbol. However, when I drew a spell line connecting the two symbols, it gathered fire two inches to the left. Further experimentation proved that as long as I had that spell line connecting the symbols, I could gather fire anywhere I placed the directional symbol. I could even create multiple directional symbols and gather fire in each of the places the symbols were located. Sure the mana costs multiplied with the number of directional symbols, but it still proved that as long as each was connected by the spell line to the core arcane character I could add multiple spell effect zones.
I’m still curious whether this could be applied to spell engraving. If it could be implemented, then I could have the main spell and multiple effect zones. For instance, a healing charm could be directed towards multiple people as long as the directional symbols were placed on each individual. On a larger scale, a hospital could have a massive heal enchantment but direct the healing energy to different beds. Heck if someone were ambitious enough, they could create a magical energy plant and direct the flow of energy to homes using this method. The only trick is finding out if this works with magical engraving the same way. After all, there would have to be some medium to carry the mana between symbols. Maybe something to experiment with when I can get my hands on various metals and crafting materials. For now, that part will have to stay a theoretical exploration.
Most afternoons, after I’d done my spellwriting research and practice, I practice all the lower level skills. I shoot the hand crossbow, climb, make coins disappear, and craft. The crossbow is surprisingly simple to use. You just pull back the crossbow string attached to the curved metal at the front of the crossbow stock. Keep pulling that string until it goes over a catch that’s located about halfway down the stock. The catch holds the bowstring, now under tension. Then lay the bolt in the groove that is cut into the crossbow top in front of the catch. Now all you have to do is aim and pull the trigger. The bolt goes flying in a relatively straight line up to thirty feet.
The crafting is the most difficult of the skills I practice since our supply of raw materials is rather limited. Also, while I can chop trees and branches down with my woodcutting axe, I lack the more refined tools I’d need to craft anything fancy. Still, I can make some crude spears and some coarse bolts for the hand crossbow. Oh, I also made the group some very ugly and rough wooden plates and cups. I actually get a splinter in my lip the first time I use one of the cups. Hey, at least it holds water.
I’m actually able to practice the only skill that costs me XP to use. I use my tools for [Magical Engraving] to put the ‘water’ symbol on the inside of my wooden cup and the horses’ trough. Even though it cost me 40 XP, now anyone that touches the symbols can use their mana to gather water there. Sure, their arm gets wet, but at least they don’t have to drag that trough to some stream to fill it up.
; After only three days of this schedule, my skill growth isn’t half bad. Animal Care: Novice 3, Cooking: Novice 7, Unarmed Combat: Novice 5. Magical Engraving: Novice 5, Magical Aura: Novice 8, Mana Control: Novice 8, Climbing: Novice 3, Sleight of Hand: Novice 4, and Craftsmanship: Novice 4.
After the third night of our journey, the landscape progressively changes from forest to mountains, and it becomes more challenging to find grassland as both the road and the forest becomes rockier. We can provide the horses with fruits to eat, but Kitsune says they need a lot of hay or grass in their diets or they’ll start to weaken. She suggests we start looking for a town or village to resupply.
That day while Kitsune and the horses rest. We decide that Mary should be the one to go scouting since she’s the only one of us that can fly and she can get an aerial view to see if there is a farm or village near us. While waiting for Mary to return, I receive a message from Lilliandra on my [Message Tablet].
Dear Armon,
I am glad to hear that you have been helping those around you and I am proud to know that you helped free the citizens of Restrian from the Empire. No one deserves to be enslaved.
In regards to your inquiry about the ledgers you took from the slaver who sold the kobolds. I am afraid that I am unable to assist you. They are not written in any language I know, rather they seem to be in some type of code. Cryptography was never one of my talents but I forwarded your sample to a colleague of mine and he tells me that he would be willing to assist you. His name is Jaxson Miltonha and he is a professor at the Trinitarian College in Monstrum. The two of studied under the same spellwriting teacher briefly and I recall that he always had a knack for decoding. If you can make your way to him, he may be able to help you.