by Dakota Krout
“That ship has sailed, and now I am risking you being drawn into my fights because I messed up and didn't place enough trust in my chosen apprentice.” The old man waved at the table, where Terra was staring down at the wood. “It was my fault that she lost a friend. I just want a chance to explain myself and make the offer I originally had planned.”
“If this is about the Mana batteries, I’m sorry to have to tell you that I really want to keep that design to myself for now. Beyond that, the item I used to craft them was destroyed when my guild was attacked by a different group that only had their own interests in mind. I don’t see myself recreating such an expensive process, especially not to hand it over to another person who will not tell me the full truth. If you planned to tell me the actual, full truth, only Terra would be here.” Joe was pleased to see the enchanter wince.
“I feel that very little would change your mind on this, so I will get right into what I have to say, and you can decide for yourself.” The elderly man collected himself. “Terra has explained to me that you have an incredible affinity for enchantment. You have been able to craft not just standard things; you have been able to generate and refine recipes for enchantment that others have given up on. Your Mana Batteries were not the only thing I was interested in, but that did play a large part in grabbing my attention. Now, there are interesting things that you have created, but I also see the glaring holes in your ability to progress.”
“Joe, there is a reason the College exists. There is a reason that we have teachers that are able to help students along the path they choose. Without the wisdom of those who came before you, you are treading your own path through the wilderness while marching alongside a paved road that already leads to your destination.” The elderly man sighed at the hesitance he still saw in Joe's eyes.
“Everything has a cost,” Joe simply replied. “I would prefer the cost to be decided by me, and not by what someone decides is best for me.”
“The College is different now,” The Enchanter promised him with a serious tone. “I will not ask that you give me anything right now, not even an answer, but please think about the things I have said.”
He paused to gesture at Terra, who had flushed a brilliant scarlet and still had not looked up from the table. “I simply wanted a chance to explain myself and attempt to make reparations. She was never meant to be spying on you, per se. I didn’t even actually send her. Terra was there because she wanted to be, and I simply asked her about your potential and such. Then I asked her to keep my interest private, and that is where I went wrong.”
“For now, I offer to bring your knowledge of enchantment to an acceptable level so that you would not destroy yourself or others. I will take you to the Beginner rank in whichever enchanting discipline you desire as recompense. From there, you will need to register as my student to go further. What I will not do… is go easy on you! Be prepared to hate me for entirely different reasons if you come for tutelage!”
“With that said, please enjoy lunch on me.” The old wizard strolled out of the room after flipping a few coins onto the table. Joe focused on Terra, who had still declined to move. He maintained his gaze for a moment longer, but when she didn't react at all… Joe turned toward the door.
“Please wait,” Terra quietly requested. Joe paused, but did not look back at her. “I am sorry that I so thoroughly ruined my friendship with you, but please take my Master's offer. The things that you can already do… I can only imagine what you would be able to do.”
“I have never really had many friends, Terra. I find it really hard to trust people, or forgive when I feel that my concerns are ignored.” Joe remained in place, then reached up and grabbed the beam alongside the door and leaned on it. He was struggling with himself; self-reflection was hard. “I am an independent and inventive person… I know that I can be preoccupied with my thoughts, I can become detached and isolate myself. In spite of all that… I want to be capable, and competent. I want to possess knowledge and understand my environment. Most of all, I fear becoming useless or trapped.”
“I didn't know what to think, back when you walked away after I joked about calling you a spy. It was clear that something had happened, and I could only assume the worst.” He turned to face her directly. “In the future, if we are going to have an issue, please come talk to me yourself. Even now, I feel oddly paranoid and want to lash out. I don't know what to think… so I am going to fight myself, and take your word that there was no ill intent. Until I see something different, that is how I’ll try to act, as well.”
Terra’s eyes widened at his words, but still she swallowed hard and nodded. “I really did not think that what I was doing was wrong. Honestly, I agree that the fact that I couldn’t explain myself and had to simply leave made things a hundred times worse. I understand… it won’t happen again.”
Joe nodded, “Thank you. I’ll also try not to be so quick to anger. I tend to jump to conclusions, but right now I could also… really use a friend. Shall we try to catch up?”
“I already ordered some food. Please sit and eat.” Terra pushed his chair out with her foot, and he sat down. They talked for a little over an hour, awkwardly at first, but getting warmer as time went on. Apparently, she was still dating Tsnake, and the relationship was going very well. He told her about some of the issues that he had been having recently, and they exchanged information about interesting items that they had seen circulating.
Too soon, Joe needed to leave and get back to his normal duties. “Thank you for this, and thank you for the explanation.”
“Thanks for letting me give one.” Terra smiled brilliantly at him, and Joe rolled his eyes at her overacting. Feeling happier than he had in a week, Joe emerged into the Guild area and looked around. There was plenty of work for him to do, and now seemed like the right time to do it, so he decided to sit down and think about what he should prioritize. He broke it down into a few broad categories.
His current quests, his duties for the guild, his personal characteristics, and his overall skills. Upon recalling his overall skills, Joe remembered to use his lore increase for the day. Architectural Lore was to Novice nine by simply focusing on it and activating, “Knowledge!”
Joe needed to return Daniella's book to her. It had helped him get up to Novice five, and he had been diligently working to maximize his level in the novice ranks before he saw her again… Joe blinked and worked to refocus. He had been finding it harder and harder to remain on one subject recently, and he was uncertain as to why. Perhaps the fact that there was just so much to do made him want to ignore it all and go lay down in bed? That sounded pretty normal to him.
He decided that since he was thinking about his skills anyway, he would start there. Joe knew that he needed to increase his combat proficiency; he was becoming nearly useless in fights beyond being a support character. Even there, his non-combat abilities had been stagnating. Now, he knew there was nothing wrong with being a support, but he wanted to be able to have a greater impact in fights if possible. Whether that meant finding new skills or improving his current ones, only time could tell.
Joe pulled up his Ritual Magic skill and sighed as he realized that it was still at Expert two. For some reason, no matter how innovative he had been with his rituals, no matter the complexity he created, this skill had barely increased since he had become a Rituarchitect. Before, he had assumed that he just was not using enough of them or challenging himself.
With a fresh attitude and a new outlook, he contemplated the book he pulled out of his storage ring: Alchemically Enhanced Components. “You hold the key, don't you? A cook could never become a Master Chef simply by having the ability to chop his ingredients really well, by having the best pots and pans, the best ingredients, or the best recipes. It is a combination of all of that, and why would Ritual Magic be any different?”
As soon as he voiced his thoughts, he had an epiphany. Joe staggered as his heart pounded and a strange energy seemed to well up within him. B
lack energy started to seep from his pores, and the sclera of his eyes flashed with spinning ritual circles. His eyes closed, then reopened, completely clear of whatever had affected them.
You have reached a deeper understanding of not only your skills, but your class and the inherent benefits and limitations it holds. Your base class has been upgraded from Ritualist to Ritualist+. You have gained at minimum a Novice understanding of the five component skills that comprise Ritual Magic as a whole. Form a deeper understanding of not only who, but what you are, to increase your base class further. New Prestige classes have opened further along your path.
Ritual Magic (Expert II): Ability to create, maintain, and change rituals much more efficiently than usual. This is a category of magic that advances based upon the understanding of the subskills within it. Only when one is a master of all the portions of this category can they be true Masters of Rituals. (Bonuses currently maximized at -85% mana and component cost.)
Alchemical Rituals (Novice III) (Passive): this governs the ability to use alchemically enhanced components in rituals to alter, further Specialize, or broaden the effects of a ritual upon activation. This is a subskill of the Ritual Magic category. +1n% to use Alchemically enhanced components in a correct manner. This may include choosing which component to use, where to place it, or how to refine it. This bonus is applied to skill checks when creating alchemical components for rituals, where n = skill level.
Enchanted Ritual Circles (Novice I) (Passive): Whether it is the storage of Enchanted gear, the usage of Enchanted inks, or the linking of multiple ritual circles, this skill governs the ability to use those enchantments in the creation of ritual circles. This is a subskill of the Ritual Magic category. +1n% to use enchantments correctly in the creation of ritual circles, where n = skill level.
Ritual Circles (Expert II) (Passive): The creation of ritual circles is a meticulous and tedious process that few have the patience or prowess to pursue. Simple mistakes lead to catastrophic results, but correct usage may lead to unfathomable power. This is a subskill of the Ritual Magic category. +1n% to use, create, destroy, or alter ritual circles, where n = skill level.
Ritualistic Forging (Novice I) (Passive): There are a plethora of components that can be created to change rituals. However, each alteration will increase the inherent instability of the ritual itself, possibly leading to catastrophic failure. However, with Ritualistic Forging, you are able to create helpful items, totems, and eventually pylons that will aid in creating a stable environment for your rituals! Use rituals to make items that help use rituals! Recursion is fun! This is a subskill of the Ritual Magic category. +1n% to the chance of creation and effect of ritual stabilizing items, where n = skill level!
Magical Matrices (Beginner IX) (Passive): Math, the bane of adventurers. Knowledge of how things are, how they should be, and the ability to prove them is the true path to mastery. This is a subskill of the Ritual Magic category. +1n% to use math and lore skill correctly in the creation of spell diagrams when applying the skill to the creation of magical diagrams when a form of higher math is required, where n = skill level.
Joe swallowed as he looked over the new additions to his skills. “That is a lot of information to take in… I feel like I should be a little offended that my entire class just became a giant passive ability? That doesn't seem like it should be right, and this! What does it mean that new ‘Prestige’ classes will be available? What is a ‘Prestige’ class and how do I get one?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
After spending the better part of an hour working to parse and understand the information that had filled his head with the addition of the new skills, Joe was feeling very pleased with the transition. The skills themselves seemed to support each other in a way that he had not been expecting. The ability to create ritual circles was actually only the most basic portion of what he could do.
With the Alchemical Rituals skill, he could almost completely alter the final effects of a ritual activation, though he would need to experiment to get a better understanding of what that meant. He had gained a few levels in the skill already, likely from fiddling around by adding potions and such to his rituals haphazardly. It seemed that the Ritualistic Forging portion was designed around gaining the things needed for adding a stabilizing portion, and Joe had an inkling that it could support the hard-to-control enchantment area of rituals.
It was the magical matrices that truly opened his eyes. Anyone could carve a circle and place a pentagram in it without understanding anything about rituals. He knew this for a fact, as that was the diagram for the very first ritual he ever performed, ‘little sister’s cleaning service’. But it was within the clinical facts of mathematics that true understanding could be formed. Luckily for him, his understanding of mathematics had allowed him to reach the Beginner ranks as soon as he had gained the skill; almost stepping into the Student ranks, in fact.
So far, he had been working from a flawed understanding of the ritual diagrams themselves. Using ‘Little Sister’s Cleaning Service’ as an example, he now understood that he could have achieved the effect of some of his basic diagrams by implementing a simple sine wave instead of using both the pentagram and circle. This change would not only save him time in creation, it would reduce the amount of mana required to power the ritual before his class bonus was ever taken into account.
One of Joe's biggest impediments in the creation of rituals had just been solved. It was going to take a lot of work, but he could now custom-design ritual diagrams without the need to search to the ends of the earth to find and adapt a ritual that someone else had left behind. It was a freeing feeling, and he was itching to go and create something completely random just because he knew that he could.
“I still need to think about other skills, particularly combat skills.” As excited as he was about his new class development, he reigned himself in and tried to refocus on his current goal. “Combat skills… I'm looking at you, Effortless Shaping of Shadows. You are supposed to be a Legendary skill, but I have so much trouble getting you to work correctly that I can only use you on the slowest and weakest of enemies.”
Joe took a deep breath, knowing that what he was about to do was probably stupid. He took his Legendary-ranked Effortless Shaping ability and placed it in the soul forge with his only Mythical skill, Solidified Shadows. “I can't use this properly right now, and I am going to have to go and learn some new spells anyway…”
Right before he pressed the button to combine them, he paused as ‘Query’ activated on its own. Another skill caught his eye; Dual Casting. He supposed that wouldn’t hurt. Now that he was using a two-handed staff to channel his spells, there were very few times that he was using both hands to cast either the same or separate spells. He added that to the mix, took a deep breath, and hit the button.
Time until skills have combined: 18 hours.
Joe was trying to keep his hands from shaking as his most potent active skills vanished into the ether, the knowledge of how to use them pulled directly out of his brain. In terms of attack spells, he now only had Acid Spray and a Dark Lightning Strike to rely on. He could only hope that he had made a wise decision for his future growth.
At the thought of future growth, he looked at his characteristics scores and decided to take a run at increasing his luck. Joe started walking toward the testing dungeon, deciding not to go with his team this time - he was planning on taking the test with the highest mortality rate. As he moved along the packed dirt road, he pondered his current quests and decided that there was nothing pressing for him to follow up on. Most of them were high difficulty, nearly impossible to complete at this time. One of his quests had expired: the daily hunt for Wolfmen had been greyed out, and now had an ‘inactive’ tag that he had never seen before.
He could go over to Ardania and heal up some prisoners or guards, but he decided that could wait for now. Not wanting to neglect them entirely, he would make a point of swinging by the guard Barracks the next time he wen
t into town. Now Joe smiled, feeling much more at peace with himself. Something about organizing the massive, sprawling individual list of things that needed to be accomplished into such broad categories allowed him to look at things with greater clarity. Perhaps he had simply been struck with choice paralysis? Joe felt his angst and worry draining away, and by the time he reached the dungeon, he was feeling positively chipper.
After entering the dungeon, he selected ‘luck’ as the trial he wanted to attempt and waited while it configured itself. Unlike the dexterity trial, there was no jumping or leaping across platforms to get into the dungeon space. There was simply a door, which he opened and stepped through. After taking two steps through endless darkness that even his eyes couldn’t penetrate…
Bad Luck! You have died! Calculating… You have lost 3,200 Experience! You will respawn in two hours!
He stood in his white death room with a look of shock and horror on his face. There had been nothing behind the door. Joe had simply stepped through, step, step, dead. This had to be a monumental joke. The test of luck was literally ‘you either die or not’? There was no skill? There were no chances to do anything different, he just died on the spot?
“Ahh!” Joe screamed into the air. He rubbed the center of his forehead with one hand, right on the glowing eye, and decided to go sit down and wait. After a few minutes of thinking about it, he started to chuckle. Joe knew that if he told anyone else about this, they would laugh at him. Therefore, he decided to keep it to himself… but use it as a lesson going forward.
He stopped to consider this trial. Was it going to be worth gambling thirty-two hundred experience for five points of luck? His experience gains had slowed significantly now that he was not engaging in active combat as much, so the loss definitely hurt. Pulling up his stat sheet, he decided that yes, it was worth the risk. Joe had been planning to do more fighting, more often, either way. This would be a good motivator, and would save him five days’ worth of characteristic point training each time the gamble succeeded.