On the Shoulders of Titans

by Andrew Rowe

  I wasn’t even going to question that. If Keras said his items were dangerous, I’d take him at his word on that. “Okay, what’s ‘some time’ mean?”

  “A couple weeks, at least? They’re in another country.”

  I grunted. “We’re meeting with Sheridan in two days.”

  “I don’t have anything on-hand, then. I could get something if Sheridan is willing to help Sera in exchange for payment at a later time, though.”

  “Okay. I’ll make the offer. Hm.” I thought about the Jaden Box again. “Do you know anything about enchanting with your type of sorcery?”

  “A little bit, but I’m no expert. Why?”

  “I was thinking about the Jaden Box, and—”

  He leaned forward abruptly. “Do not give away the Jaden Box.”

  I raised my hands defensively. “Okay, okay. I won’t. But could we make a copy of it?”

  He shook his head. “No, you’d need an expert for that, and types of sorcery I don’t have. Travel, stability... Nothing I’m skilled at.”

  “Hrm. Could you help me enchant something else with...what did you call it, dominion sorcery?”

  “I’m not particularly well-versed in enchanting theory, unfortunately. But I suppose if you have an Enchanter attunement... Combining our types of sorcery might be possible, yes. It’s dangerous, though. When I’ve tried to combine my sorcery with local magic before it’s usually backfired.”

  He winced, seeming to remember something. “We’d need to be extremely careful. And this isn’t something you’d want to rush. We can try to get something done in a couple days, but I doubt it will work that fast.”

  “Okay, I can accept that. We can talk about alternate plans if we can’t finish anything in time.” I took a breath. “You’re doing a lot for me and my sister, and I appreciate that. Is there anything I can do in exchange?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “You did help me break out of a prison once. But, if you’d like to keep filling me in on things about your culture so I avoid any more heresy trials, I’d appreciate that.”

  “Deal.” I grinned and offered him a hand.

  He clasped me on the wrist, a little hard, and made some kind of twisting motion.

  I laughed. “Lesson one — that’s not how we shake hands here.”

  Keras pulled his wrist away, looking mildly scandalized. “...it’s not?”

  ***

  I had several ideas on what I could offer Sheridan. The problem was that I didn’t particularly like any of them.

  The Jaden Box sounded like the best idea, but Keras clearly didn’t want me to give it up. I knew he wanted to use it himself when it was finished recharging, so that made sense. I had my own reasons for wanting to keep it.

  Selys-Lyann might have been worth Sheridan’s attention, assuming it really was what Lars thought it was. Tristan had given it to me, though, and in spite of my conflicted feelings about Tristan, I didn’t want to get rid of it.

  Sera still had Ceris, the Song of Harmony, but that wasn’t mine to give. I brought it up as an option to her, but her scribbled reply was clear enough.

  Not giving this away for a chance at a partial cure. We’ll come up with something else. Also, let me know if you figure out how this sword works. I’ve been reading up about it, but it’s all just legends. No details on the functions.

  I agreed with her logic, and I agreed to let her know if I found out more about how Ceris functioned. Keras seemed to recognize it, so I’d ask him later.

  I still had the ring of regeneration…and the rock of regeneration…but I doubted either would interest Sheridan. The ring would be valuable, but it was still a standard magical item. The rock was unusual, but inferior to the ring in almost every regard. True, I could activate it on someone who was unconscious, but it was nowhere near as powerful. I’d charged it with the life mana crystals I had on-hand, and those were strong enough to make the runes function, but not enough to make it as potent as the original ring.

  So, that left me with either making a new item as I’d discussed with Keras, or maybe providing forbidden knowledge or a service that Sheridan needed.

  I wanted to have options in all three areas.

  I decided to do a little research next. I sat down next to the stack of books I’d picked up from the library and the Divinatory and got to reading.

  I had a lot of things I wanted to research, but restricted attunements were first on the list. I both wanted to know more about my own attunement, and perhaps more importantly, I needed to see what I could find about Necromancers.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Derek.

  It was more, well, that I didn’t trust anyone completely. After what had happened with Orden, I was going to be a little more careful about taking the first thing that anyone told me on a subject as reliable information.

  This didn’t mean I was planning to spend hundreds of hours verifying every little thing that they were teaching in classes, of course. But knowing if a Necromancer actually had the ability to deal with scarring, or if Necromancers even existed?

  That was pretty relevant.

  Derek didn’t have a lot of motivation to mislead us on this subject that I was aware of, but I knew painfully little about him in general. That was something that I could remedy over time.

  But for now? Books. Lots of books.

  I read through the few sections I could find on restricted attunements first.

  It is commonly believed that there are eight restricted attunements. These may or may not be the same attunements as those housed in the theoretical Spider Spire, which is assumed to exist, but has never been found. Or, at a minimum, never publicly disclosed.

  Below, we discuss what little we know about these unusual attunements. Due to their rarity, we cannot promise that the information below is reliable or complete.

  The best known restricted attunement is the Hierophant. The Hierophant attunement is generally only bestowed upon the current leader of the priesthood for each of the visages.

  Hierophants are known for their ability to effortlessly extend their shroud over a large area, while imbuing it with a spell effect. This is generally referred to as an imbued shroud. For example, a Hierophant could imbue their shroud with healing magic, passively healing everyone in their proximity.

  Paladins are the next most common of the restricted attunements. Holy champions of the goddess, Paladins have the unique ability to draw additional power from their patron visage during times of great need. These abilities are referred to as divine invocations.

  The exact nature and effect of these invocations vary from visage to visage, but in all publicly known appearances of this ability, the effects have been tremendous. For example, Tevan Ellis, a Paladin of Melkyr, used an invocation during the Battle of Kevan’s Crossing in the Quelling War.

  Witnesses claimed that Tevan was surrounded by a golden aura that temporarily rendered him completely immune to both physical and magical harm. In the aftermath of the battle, Tevan lost consciousness for several days, implying that this power has a tremendous cost on the body.

  The Abjurer is an attunement focused on breaking existing spells. The most powerful of their abilities is banishment — the ability to send a summoned creature back to their place of origin and prevent them from returning for some time. In the case of true elementals, this will send them to their home plane and force them to remain there. Creatures summoned by Summoners will be forced back to their spire, and cannot be resummoned until the banishment is broken.

  The Arbiter attunement is given to those who perform services to a visage, often completing legendary quests or averting catastrophes. The Arbiter attunement allows a mage to imbue other attuned with a fraction of their power.

  It is sometimes speculated that there is a Necromancer attunement, but is unlikely. Raising the dead has been proven to be impossible on numerous occasions.

  The last known restricted attunement is the Sovereign. It is believed to be able to control or draw
power from other attunements. Some claim that it also allowed for the absorption of spells and enchantments to increase the power of the Sovereign. Once, it was given to the leaders of nations, but humanity has not been blessed with a Sovereign in many centuries.

  I frowned as I looked over the passage about the Arbiter attunement again. I hadn’t been expecting much, but it was still disappointing.

  The description of the Paladin attunement described a golden aura that granted invulnerability. That was very interesting, since the color gold was usually associated with the Tyrant in Gold, not the goddess.

  Maybe I was reading too much into the color. After all, the yellow aura from Citrine attunements also could be described as “gold”. Still, I wanted to learn more about it at some point.

  The Sovereign attunement sounded very interesting. I was curious what controlling and drawing power from other attunements entailed — was it like the opposite of my own attunement?

  Could it be used to steal an entire attunement permanently? That would be fascinating if it really existed. Also, sort of terrifying.

  I picked up the other book that listed restricted attunements and checked through there as well, but that one didn’t even talk about Necromancers. It did have a slightly lengthier section on the Arbiter attunement, though, including one particular tidbit that interested me a great deal.

  Warren Constantine, a famous Arbiter in Caelford, was integral in the process of constructing the first generation of artificial attunements. He is listed as a principal contributor in the earliest papers published on new attunement development, until he abruptly disappeared from the public scene in 402 AF.

  While Caelford does have a handful of other Arbiters, it is believed that the Arbiter attunement is not actually a necessary part of the process. Instead, modern approaches to crafting artificial attunements rely primarily on Biomancers, a local attunement that allows for manipulation of a subject’s mana. While the details of the process have not been publicly published, it is believed that creating an artificial attunement requires work on the parts of both Biomancers and Enchanters.

  It is possible that earlier-generation artificial attunements were performed by Arbiters rather than — or in addition to — Biomancers. This may have been abandoned due to dangers in that process, or due to the comparative scarcity of Arbiters. Unfortunately, the exact details of the process are currently considered military secrets, and thus not yet available for public consummation or discussion.

  I had a lot of questions related to that. I definitely needed to do some follow-up research on artificial attunements, as well as the remarkably suspicious disappearance of Warren Constantine.

  I devoured the rest of the section on the Arbiter attunement. It was only about ten pages, since sources on how it worked were pretty scarce. Most of it was the same as what Researcher had told me, with a few minor differences, and a few shreds of new information.

  The most important part was that it actually described the process of imbuing other people with mana, which was something I hadn’t gotten around to asking. It was exactly what I expected, though. I just needed to channel mana through my right hand and the attunement would do all the rest of the work.

  Notably, the writer believed that the purification process was occurring in my body all the time, not just at the time that I sent the mana out. That wasn’t something I could rely on without research, but it meant I might be able to safely transfer mana through my other hand in a desperate situation.

  I’ll have to test that in a lab environment before I actually try it on a person.

  I was definitely going to try transferring mana through the Arbiter attunement itself soon, though. Probably to Derek or Patrick, since neither of them recently had their mana overcharged by anything else.

  Derek was probably the best option to start with, since he had experience working with an elemental who had a similar mana recharging ability, and he was probably powerful enough to shrug it off if I did something terribly wrong.

  I didn’t think I’d be able to give Derek any significant long-term benefit. I didn’t have enough mana for that.

  In fact, I didn’t even know exactly how much mana I had at that moment.

  Thinking on that, I got out my mana watch to check.

  I pressed the device to my forehead, and it registered 50/50. I’d gotten a couple points of mana in the aftermath of the visit to the spire, which was great progress by my standards.

  My right hand was far more impressive, registering at 82/82. It had measured at 58 right before I’d taken the second fake spire exam, which felt like weeks ago, but it had only been a few days. I’d strained my hand considerably during all the fighting and enchanting in the spire, which was probably part of the reason it had grown so much. Katashi transforming the brand into a fully-functional attunement was probably a big part of it, too.

  The minimum for hitting Carnelian was 60 mana, which meant that I’d passed it handily with my hand, but I wasn’t quite there with my Enchanter attunement yet.

  Sunstone was six times that, or 360. That...was going to take a while.

  I didn’t even want to think about getting the more than two thousand necessary for Citrine.

  So, no, I definitely couldn’t give Derek any substantial long-term benefit yet. But if Patrick was at a similar level to my Enchanter attunement with his Elementalist one, and I could give him a two percent increase per week... That was about one extra mana a week, which wasn’t bad at all.

  I’d started out only getting about one mana a week in total, then more like two mana per week when I started eating lavris fruit. Now, I was probably getting closer to five a week, depending on how much I exercised.

  Could I push that to ten mana and get my Enchanter attunement to Carnelian in a week?

  It was worth trying. I was tired of feeling weak, and having two Carnelian shrouds would make me a lot safer. They still wouldn’t equate to a single Sunstone shroud, but I’d take any extra defense I could get.

  Thinking about exercising, it had been a while since I had worked on making any mana crystals.

  I still had a couple practice molds, so I worked on filling one up with mana from my right hand.

  The process only took me about ten seconds.

  I stared at the finished product in disbelief, carefully cracking open the mold...and there it was, a pure crystal of gray mana. The density of the mana was so low that it wouldn’t be of much use, just like the ones I’d crafted before, but I’d made it fast.

  Just a week ago, the process would have taken me several minutes. My power increase wasn’t sufficient to justify that degree of change. That meant there was another explanation.

  I made another one, this time drawing from my Enchanter attunement as a mana source, but still channeling it through my right hand.

  It still only took about fifteen seconds.

  It took me a few more minutes of testing to feel comfortable with my conclusion. I tried transferring mana from my other hand next, then transferring mana from my hand into my phoenix sigil.

  After that, I dug through my bags until I found something I hadn’t enchanted at all yet. All I found was an extra metal disc like what I’d used to make the phoenix sigils, but that was fine. I’d just make another phoenix sigil with it.

  I cut the runes, then tested filling them with my mana.

  In all cases, I was transferring mana several times faster than before. Probably around ten to twenty times faster, if I had to guess.

  As much as I obsessed over my mana watch, I still didn’t have a regular watch.

  But I’d learned what I needed to learn from the tests, and it was important.

  My new attunement was letting me transfer mana faster. Either that was an inherent property of the Arbiter attunement, or perhaps it was having a synergistic effect with my Enchanter attunement. They both were primarily focused on transferring mana in different ways, so a compounding effect was definitely possible.

  This help
ed support one of my other suspicions, too — the “brand” I had before was probably a nascent Arbiter attunement even before Katashi activated it. That might have been part of why I’d found it so easy to perform enchantments in the spire. The spire’s own properties contributed, too, but my unfinished attunement was likely already working to a limited degree.

  If I’d known how the brand worked at the time, would I have done anything differently?

  Maybe I could have transferred mana into Sera directly, instead of giving her the potion, and saved her from these scars...but no, that wouldn’t have been enough power.

  We needed Seiryu, and even if I’d managed to push her to Carnelian, she probably couldn’t have handled summoning her.

  Moreover, I don’t know if the attunement’s purification function was active at that point, even if it was already making it easier for me to enchant.

  With some effort, I brushed those thoughts aside and got back to work.

  I had something to attempt that I’d been failing at for weeks.

  I put my hands together, closed my eyes, and focused.

  It took me the better part of two hours before I opened my hands and gazed at the crystal within.

  I’d made it without a mold.

  I grinned, tossed the crystal on a nearby table, and continued to work.

  I had a world of new options now, and it was time to start exploiting them.

  Chapter V – Options

  I got uncharacteristically overzealous about my new enchanting prospects, making crystal after crystal until my hand was throbbing and my temples were searing.

  When I was done, I checked my mana with my mana watch. My hand registered at 14/82 and my Enchanting attunement was down to 18/50. That was much lower than I was used to going, even while focusing on deliberately exercising. The excitement helped me push past my fear, at least to a point.