by Andrew Rowe
“What sort of curse?” I asked, shoulders slumped in resignation.
“Once, that sword was wielded by a great warrior, who loved the goddess deeply. And the goddess loved her in return, although the warrior would never know it. The warrior sought the apex of the towers, as many do, to pray to the goddess to descend from the sky so they might be together.”
I listened carefully.
Lars leaned up against a nearby table. “The warrior was a Soulblade, one of the attunements from the north. She was unparalleled in skill and grace, able to achieve marvels with even a humble blade. The warrior made her way to near the top of the tower and stood against her final foe, Mizuchi, a child of the God Serpent itself.”
The Hero’s End.
I felt a chill run down my spine.
“The warrior’s battle against Mizuchi raged for hours, but though the warrior was greatly skilled, she was of humble birth. Her sword, a simple thing of iron, could not pierce Mizuchi’s scales, and though she tried to strike for a weakness, she could find none. Finally, she sought to block a blow from the guardian beast, but her blade snapped in twain. Mizuchi’s fangs pierced her heart. As the warrior lay dying, she called out to the goddess, the only being she had ever loved.”
“The goddess descended from the skies, but the warrior’s eyes were already closed.”
I lowered my eyes. The story didn’t sound true — how would anyone know the tale if the warrior had died alone atop the tower — but it still affected me.
“As Selys held the warrior’s body, the goddess cried for the loss of a champion, slain by the weakness of her weapon. The goddess’ tears flowed to the blade, mingling with the hero’s blood, and forging the blade anew.”
I glanced down at the hilt of the sword, then back to Lars.
“They say that the sword has passed through many hands over time, each pursuing a worthy goal. Selys-Lyann’s blade will never break again, and she cuts with the ice of Selys’ tears, but beware: she is a traitorous blade. Each time a hero wielding Selys-Lyann’s has come a hair’s breadth from their goal, they have failed — often betrayed by one of their trusted companions. And so Selys will descend again from the sky, and her tears will wipe the blade clean... until it is claimed by the next hero, destined to die by their own blade’s curse.”
I nearly took the sword off my belt and abandoned it that very moment.
“So,” he continued, drawing that one word out in a low voice, “if you’ll be needing an anti-curse sigil, I’ve got a few for sale at very reasonable—” He stopped, interrupted by the single raised finger I’d held in front of him.
I took a moment to fix him with a disbelieving stare. Then, “...Did you just make that entire thing up in order to sell me an anti-curse item?”
Lars let out another deep laugh, slapping me on the arm. “Not all of it, lad. Not all of it. It really is cursed, or so they say. But I don’t put too much stock into curses. They rarely work the way people think. Never can be too safe, though...”
And that’s how I spent nearly half my savings on an anti-curse trinket that I suspected had no function at all.
***
I returned home a little bit shaken from the story, but considerably better equipped. The anti-curse trinket was a feather, supposedly taken from a gryphon, which I attached to the Selys-Lyann’s hilt. I’d look the weapon up later to see if I could verify which parts of the story, if any, were real.
Beyond that, I’d found several things I wanted at the shop, including a bag that diminished the weight of objects inside, a pair of boots that would increase the height of my jumps, a bracelet of shielding that would recharge itself over time, and a dueling cane that was enchanted to project lightning rather than gray mana.
I could afford precisely zero of those things.
The boots were the cheapest at only two hundred silver sigils.
I had seventeen silver sigils left after purchasing the anti-curse trinket. I quickly found that any permanent magical item was out of my price range — but that had some advantages, too. As soon as I could make permanent magical items, I could probably sell them for a handy profit.
I decided I wanted to try to make a permanent item, and thus, I needed materials.
I had a few things I could already work with: two lesser gray crystals from the slimes; one lesser earth crystal from the barghensi; and the one large crystal of unknown function that Professor Orden had given me.
I also had the handful of crystals that Jin had given me as payment for my help with his own enchantments. I’d used a couple on the enchantments for my room, though. My remaining resources from Jin consisted of two medium gray crystals, three lesser gray crystals, one medium mind crystal, and one medium transference crystal.
I picked up a few crystals at Lars’ place and asked him about their costs, bought one, and then made myself a list of his costs for future reference.
Lesser (Class 1) Gray — 3 Silver
Lesser (Class 1) Other — 4 Silver
Medium (Class 2) Gray — 12 Silver
Medium (Class 2) Other — 16 Silver
Greater (Class 3) Gray — 120 Silver
Greater (Class 3) Other — 160 Silver
Superior (Class 4) — Varies by type, quoted me 600 Silver for a Class 4 Transference crystal
The classification numbers apparently were more important than the actual physical size — more powerful crystals were denser with mana, not necessarily larger. Most people still used terms like “lesser” and “greater” for short-hand, but as an Enchanter, I’d need to pay closer attention to the technical classifications as I got more experienced.
There were at least six classes of gems, but apparently anything more powerful than Class 3 was extraordinarily rare. From the prices, I sincerely doubted I’d be working with anything higher than Class 2 in the immediate future.
I found it deeply ironic that our attunements were named after types of gems, but these magical gems weren’t. I guessed it was probably because of color confusion. A Class 1 gem might be blue if it contained water mana, so calling it a “mana carnelian” would be confusing.
The one I decided to pick up was a medium transference crystal. Almost every enchantment I’d found would require at least two crystals of the same type, and I was leaning toward a transference enchantment. I managed to barter him down to 9 sigils, leaving me with a single coin to my name.
When that was done, I went to the Divinatory and asked them to identify the large crystal Professor Orden had given me.
The answer was...unexpected.
“That’s a Class 2 universal mana core.”
I blinked. “Universal? You mean gray?”
The Diviner shook his head. “Nope. Universal. It’s much rarer. You can channel any kind of mana into it and it’ll change into a crystal of that type. Don’t waste that thing, it’s rare; only a few of the strongest monsters in the tower have universal cores. How’d you get it?”
“Uh... gift from a teacher.”
“Wow. That teacher must really like you. Those things are expensive.”
Huh.
I didn’t really know what to make of that. I bid the Diviner goodbye and headed back to my room.
Having a universal core vastly broadened my options — if I was willing to use it immediately. No wonder Professor Orden already thought she’d given me enough resources. This crystal itself was worth at least as much as one of the greater crystals in the shop, and probably vastly more, due to its flexibility.
I could only change it into a few types of things myself, but for something like this, I’d be willing to put in the effort to ask a friend to shift it to a different type.
What could I accomplish with a single Class 2 mana core of any type I wanted?
Shuffling though my books, I came up with a pretty simple answer: nothing more than I could have made before.
Using Class 2 cores was at least Carnelian-level, possibly higher. Attempting a Carnelian-level enchantment at my ski
ll level had a huge possibility of failure — which would cost me the crystal — and possibly a disastrous backlash if I made a bad enough mistake.
I tucked the crystal away in the relative safety of a secret compartment in the bottom of the wooden crate where I kept my laundry.
While putting the crystal away in there, I found my other hidden item, the flask of water from the attunement chamber. I hadn’t forgotten about it exactly, but I also hadn’t done anything with it as quickly as I had planned.
I turned on my attunement to look at the flask. The water inside still glowed a bright, ice-blue hue under my vision. The same hue, in fact, that I saw on my own attunement if I looked in the mirror while it was active.
I’d promised myself I’d do something to preserve the water in there, but I’d procrastinated on it pretty severely. Grudgingly, I spent most of the day studying enchantments to preserve potions. Fortunately, I was able to find a few that only required gray mana.
I marked the flask’s exterior with ink, the easiest way to make a rune on something made of leather. Then I spent the evening putting two quick enchantments on the flask. One to preserve the liquid, and the second being a simple shield sigil like I was using on my walls. I didn’t want a stray arrow puncturing the thing.
I was getting to the point where I had a lot of enchantments to maintain. None of the enchantments I’d made thus far were the permanent, self-sustaining kind — those were too expensive. Even the items I was making for Jin would have to be recharged, but he seemed confident he could get them refilled without people asking too many questions. I didn’t ask how.
I ran into Sera while I was shopping for supplies for my permanent enchantment.
She fell into step by my side, walking with me to the shop. “You sign up for a team for the practicals yet?”
How does everyone know about these other than me? “No. I wasn’t even aware we had teams.”
Sera paused in her step, staring at me for a second. “Seriously? I was wondering why you hadn’t asked me to join you, and I was feeling a little left out... but you didn’t even know?”
I shook my head. “Is this in one of our thousands of school documents somewhere?”
I had read those. Or skimmed them. Skimmed most of them. Parts.
The first few pages, at least.
“Yes, but they’ve also been all over the newspapers. And they’re the only thing half the students have been talking about for weeks!”
Oh, talking to people. That’s a thing I should do again sometime.
“Right,” I said sheepishly. “What’s the deal?”
“Teams of five, to get ready for the first tower incursion.” Her reply was instant. “I’ve got Patrick on my team already.”
Patrick was an unsurprising choice — he was both talented and very easy to work with. “What about Roland?”
Sera made an ugly scowl. “He had ‘other obligations’.”
Huh. That would be interesting if I actually cared.
This was giving me an idea, though. “You ask any physical fighters yet?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, you sold me. I’ll join your team... if you let me bring a friend.”
She drew back and crossed her arms. “Who said I want you?”
I gave her a knowing look. “I’m not going to beg.”
“Fine, fine. You can join us. And you can pick someone. But get Jin, too, yeah?”
She wants Jin on the team? That was interesting. I would have expected her to go with any of the other students we’d known for years.
“I think I can sell him on the idea. Where do I sign up?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it. I’ve known how to forge your signature for years.”
“Knowledge is distinct from mastery. If your idea of my signature is anything like your homages to the great artists of—”
“I was six when I drew those, Corin. Six! Are you never going to let that go?”
“Not if you keep giving me such perfect reactions.”
“Ugh.”
We made our way to the shops without any further incidents, and she helped me pick out some of the items I needed. Fortunately, I’d just gotten my weekly stipend that morning; otherwise I’d have been begging Sera for a loan. I was only going to make one or two items immediately, but I picked up a handful of mundane accessories for future enchantments for myself, as well as the next few things Jin was going to need.
I had a lot of options in mind for my first item, even with my relatively limited resources.
In terms of function, I had a few main things I wanted to focus on.
First, I needed to make sure I stayed intact. My shield sigil was a good start for this, especially because I could recharge it myself, but eventually I wanted something that was stronger and wouldn’t require any upkeep from my side.
It also had a clear weakness to kinetic energy. Most shielding spells seemed to dampen the force of physical attacks, but failed to stop them entirely. I’d need to research how to counter that. Maybe a transference-based shield spell?
I also needed more raw offensive power. When Professor Orden had broken into my room, her tunic had been able to effortlessly absorb my dueling cane’s blasts. Maybe she wasn’t a fair bar to set. I couldn’t expect to beat opponents with Emerald-level enchantments that caught me by surprise in a fair fight, but even my own humble shield sigil was capable of soaking about fifteen hits from a standard dueling cane before failing.
Presumably, that was why Lord Teft had felt comfortable letting us throw spells at each other on our first day of class. The sigil defenses were more than capable of stopping anything your average student could have produced. Sera’s summoning-based attack spell might have broken through a shield, but I really had no idea. It was visually impressive, but I didn’t know how much punch those shards of ice had.
If I couldn’t break a simple shield, I couldn’t be expected to handle any monster of significant power, either. My sword might have done the job, but I still didn’t know exactly how it worked, and I wasn’t going to get into close range with anything threatening if I could avoid it. I had just enough sword training to know that there were plenty of people who were better.
Information gathering was another high priority. I still had access to multiple items that I couldn’t even properly identify, which meant that I couldn’t use them to the height of their capabilities. Besides identifying items, I also wanted anything that would help give me clues on how to solve the multitude of puzzles inside the tower, or otherwise help me make my way through. Maybe I could eventually find spells to locate other people? I’d need to do some research on that. I knew practically nothing about the capabilities and limitations of divination.
Finally, I wanted some items to improve my mobility. Things that would let me safely traverse tower rooms with gaping chasms and spinning blades. Teleportation was the most obvious choice, followed by things that would simply increase my speed or agility. Flight could be useful, too, if I could manage it.
From those broad options, I came up with a short list of things I could actually make. A better shield sigil was an option, and there were types listed in the Advanced Artifice book — which I probably needed to return to the library at some point — that were designed to stop kinetic attacks. They were all listed as at least “Carnelian” level, but they didn’t look difficult.
In terms of firepower, there were a lot of options. Mages, unsurprisingly, loved researching new and exciting ways to explode things just as much as anyone else. I found a lot of runes dedicated to variations on dueling canes — ones that fired elemental bolts instead of gray mana, for example, or that had specialized enhancements for attacks. Bolts that homed in on enemies, for example, or blasted through basic shielding.
A lot of these options were probably within my capabilities, but they were also common, and that meant there would be accessible defenses against them. They’d still be perfectly viable in the to
wer, but I wanted something I could use if I was attacked by another human that was potentially more experienced than I was. That meant something less obvious... maybe an enchanted ring?
I shelved that idea for the moment, looking at the other categories.
For information gathering, I found several enchantments for interfacing with other enchantments, like how my sigil detected other projectiles. I found very few detection spells that could be used on their own, though. Most of the divination enchantments I’d looked up for Jin were only useful in specific situations — things like seeing in the dark, detecting ambient mana, and seeing through walls. I really wanted something that would give me information about magical items, but I didn’t find anything like that in my books. I’d have to ask a more experienced Enchanter about it later.
Mobility was almost entirely out of my reach. I could make an enchantment to increase the height I could jump, but not a lot else. Even increasing my running speed would require several runes I didn’t have listed in my books. Apparently, just adding mobility by itself would add force to my motions without any stability, so I’d basically be blasting myself forward with each step. Hilarious, but impractical.
So, all in all, blowing things up seemed best.
I’d picked up a couple cheap rings, but a bit of study told me they wouldn’t work on their own. An item’s mana capacity was based on its size and materials, and a simple metal band couldn’t hold much of anything.
Gems could hold a great deal, but there were two problems with that. One, I couldn’t afford any decent gems. Two, I didn’t know how to inscribe them with runes properly. Etching metal was easy. Drawing on the surface of a diamond? I wasn’t sure, but that sounded a lot harder.
So, what else was easily concealed and potentially a good source for directing attack magic? Necklaces had the same problems as rings, and also the magic would emanate directly from the item. I couldn’t aim my neck very well. Really, that last part meant I needed either something hand-held or something on my hand. I was back to dueling canes...or maybe a glove?
Standard cloth and leather gloves had terrible mana capacities, too, as it turned out. There were specialized types of materials that could hold a lot of mana, but they were well outside my price range.