On the Shoulders of Titans

by Andrew Rowe

  “What, so you smuggled me some liquor, then? I could use enough to knock myself out for about a week.”

  I gave her a shrug. “No, but this should keep you busy for a while.”

  I set a stack of papers on the desk next to her.

  She picked up the first page. “Application for the patent and distribution of....” Vellum turned her head to me. “You brought me incomplete patent applications as a gift?”

  “Well, you do have plenty of free time on your hands. And since our last patent didn’t go through, I figured.”

  “You are the worst hospital visitor I have ever encountered. And that’s impressive, because I’m including doctors on that list, and they have needles.”

  I laughed. “You’ll be happier when you read through and see what I’m offering.”

  “I sincerely doubt that.”

  I smiled. “How many people do you know that can make mana regeneration items?”

  Vellum’s eyes narrowed at me, then she glanced back to the papers. “Hmm.” She lifted up the stack, paging through briefly. “You want to patent something that only works when you make it?”

  “It’s not literally something that only I can make. It’s just that, like you taught me, purifying magic is normally a horrendously inefficient process. Now, I’m not a patent lawyer, but from what I could tell from a cursory trip to the patent office... I don’t think anyone has ever bothered to patent mana regeneration items in general. People do make them, but they’re so rare and inefficient that no one is bothering with securing the rights. It currently has little value, but...”

  “You think it will be valuable in the future.”

  That was an understatement. “Once artificial attunements are more widespread, any number of people could have the same combination of attunements that I do. When that happens, it will be much easier to make mana regeneration items like mine. And I can already tell you that they’re extremely useful.”

  Vellum nodded. “Very well. And why are you bothering to involve me? You’ve clearly gone through most the research process already.”

  I shrugged. “I have no experience with filing patents, and I could use your expertise.” I hesitated, glancing away.

  “And?”

  “...And as something of an apology.”

  “For what, boy? You aren’t the only one I rescued at the ball, you know.”

  I shook my head. “I’m grateful for that, of course...but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Oh?”

  “When I took your final exam...I wasn’t exactly honest with you. I, uh, didn’t really make a separate anchor for the teleportation necklace. And I uh, sort of implied that I had?”

  Vellum broke into laughter, so hard that she ended up covering her face. “My dear boy, that was obvious. When I asked you about how the anchor worked, that was a jab. I was telling you that I knew you hadn’t made a proper anchor for it.” She laughed again, shaking her head. “You’re fine, dear. That was already reflected in your grade.”

  “...It was?”

  Vellum nodded. “The more important question is...did you fix it?”

  I hesitated. “Yes, but—”

  “Does it work now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Now, don’t make the same mistake again. Moving an enchantment from one item to another might seem simpler than making a new item from scratch, but there are additional layers of complexity that it’s easy to forget about.”

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t. Not properly.” She set down the papers and waved to another nearby chair. “Take a seat. It’s time for your lesson.”

  I took a seat and listened attentively to my mentor’s advice.

  ***

  There was one last trip to make before I left town.

  No, not to Magnus Cadence.

  He’d get a letter if he was lucky.

  I pushed my way into the doors of the Climber’s Court. It was busy that day, with customers gathered around Lars as he told a story.

  “...The wind lashed about us as we climbed toward the Wind Temple. And when I say ‘lashed’, I mean like a damn scythe. The living whirlwinds would tear you apart if they blew past you. But dangerous as they were, they weren’t the real problem. The razor winds had been called by Raizo, the wielder of the Cloudcutter.”

  He paused, spreading his hands wide for dramatic effect, “And Raizo had a score to settle with me.”

  The customers were so distracted that I don’t think they even notice me enter, but Lars did. “Corin, lad! Come here and listen. I’m just getting to the best part!”

  I came over and listened to his story, leaning against a nearby counter to listen.

  He drew us in with his story of swords and monsters, of legendary magic and heroes lost.

  And then, when his story was done, he reached behind the counter.

  “And here it is. A fragment of the Prime Crystal of Air itself, taken from that last battle in the Wind Temple.”

  He lifted the glimmering crystal, which glowed with brilliant light even without my attunement active.

  “One of my most precious possessions. A relic of times long lost, guarded by the tengu for centuries, and earned through battles hard-fought and won.”

  He closed his eyes in a moment of solemnity, nodding to himself.

  “Bidding begins at five hundred and eighty gold pieces.”

  And with that, the auction began.

  I didn’t leave that night with a piece of legendary crystal, or any other item from that shop.

  But after the last customer left, and the night was dark, he gave me something more important when I said my goodbyes.

  “Aw, leavin, are ye? That’s a shame. Ye might not be my highest payin’ customer, but yer still a good one.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing.

  “Don’t look so sad, lad.” Lars smiled. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”

  ***

  I never had a chance to say goodbye to Derek. He’d disappeared right around the same time I’d entered the spire. Elora assured me that he simply did this on occasion, and that he’d be fine.

  I left him a short note thanking him for everything, and Elora assured me that she’d make sure it got to him.

  I still didn’t trust Elora in general, but I figured I could trust her with that.

  While I was writing letters, though, I did write one to my mother.

  Mother,

  I’ve discovered a bit of what happened in the spire.

  I’m heading out of the country for a while.

  I considered coming to you, but I think this is for the best.

  I am safe. Sera will be with me.

  And so will Patrick. He’s one of my retainers now, if you haven’t heard.

  I hope that you’re safe and well in Dalenos.

  We do have much to discuss. I hope you will be back in Valia by the time I return.

  Your Son,

  -Corin

  I considered explaining that I’d met with Tristan, but I couldn’t trust that the letter would reach my mother without being compromised by someone else. The risks were too high.

  And she already knew he was alive.

  That fact still weighed heavily on me, but I tried not to think about it too much.

  Was I being a hypocrite by not telling my father what I knew?

  Absolutely.

  But after everything Magnus Cadence had done, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

  With my final business completed, I met with my friends.

  Sera, Patrick, and Marissa – my closest companions.

  Keras, my new swordsmanship teacher.

  And finally Cecily.

  I didn’t really know what she was to me yet, but I did look forward to finding out.

  With them, I boarded the train to Caelford.

  The trip across the continent would take about two weeks.

  And so, those five friend
s persuaded me to tell this story.

  I agreed under a few conditions.

  First, they had to understand that I was going from memory, and that not every detail of every conversation was going to be perfectly accurate.

  It was possible that I might embellish a few little bits and pieces here and there.

  Second, they’d have to keep the story to themselves. I didn’t want this information spreading to anyone else without a chance for me to approve whoever we were going to share it with. Trust still wasn’t easy for me.

  Third, I wasn’t going to omit bits for anyone. That meant there were going to be a few pieces of the story that might be a little embarrassing to me, or to others.

  So, uh, sorry about telling everyone about when you asked Sera out, Patrick.

  After that, though, there was one last condition.

  This story was offered as a trade.

  Sera, you’re going to need to tell us at some point how you walked out of your Judgment the ability to summon a god beast.

  But first?

  Keras, it’s your turn to tell us a story.

  Tell us about Dawnbringer and the Six Sacred Swords.

  THE END

  Appendix I – Attunement Mark Levels

  From a Lesson by Professor Vestan, Introductory Runes Class

  Attunement marks physically change when you reach an appropriate mana threshold.

  Two factors make this obvious; one, the mark will physically change, and two, your aura will change in color.

  Of course, not everyone can perceive aura colors. This is an advantage that Enchanters and Diviners — as well as their analogues in other countries — have early on. It is only at higher attunement levels that other attuned begin to detect auras, and even then, some never truly see them.

  The aura colors follow the colors of the rainbow. Locally, we refer to these by gemstone names — Quartz representing clear, Carnelian being red, Sunstone being orange, and so on.

  Some other nations use other systems; either simply referring to the name of the color itself, or, in Edria’s case, ignoring it entirely and referring to levels by number. This last case is most likely because Edria has so few attuned that see aura colors; thus, a numeric scheme for progression seems more logical to them.

  These level thresholds are not purely a visual change, however. They represent a clear change in your capabilities. Most teachers like to talk about these in generalities — that you will gain a shroud at Carnelian, for example. In truth, the abilities you earn at each attunement level vary considerably from attunement to attunement. There are general rules, but it’s important to remember that there are also exceptions.

  Today, we’ll be working on memorizing the basic runes for each attunement at their first few levels. Please do keep in mind, however, that attunement marks have variations. The ones we’ll be discussing here are the current basic marks for your generation. We’ll discuss what that means in greater detail later this year.

  Diviner Attunement

  Diviner Level

  Rune

  Quartz

  Carnelian

  Sunstone

  Guardian Attunement

  Guardian Level

  Rune

  Quartz

  Carnelian

  Sunstone

  Elementalist Attunement

  Elementalist Level

  Rune

  Quartz

  Carnelian

  Sunstone

  Enchanter Attunement

  Enchanter Level

  Rune

  Quartz

  Carnelian

  Sunstone

  Mender Attunement

  Mender Level

  Rune

  Quartz

  Carnelian

  Sunstone

  Shadow Attunement

  Shadow Level

  Rune

  Quartz

  Carnelian

  Sunstone

  Shaper Attunement

  Shaper Level

  Rune

  Quartz

  Carnelian

  Sunstone

  Summoner Attunement

  Summoner Level

  Rune

  Quartz

  Carnelian

  Sunstone

  Appendix II – Attunement Mark Variations

  From a Lesson by Professor Meltlake, Magic Theory Class

  Attunements theory is constantly being updated. This is, at least in part, because attunements themselves are always changing.

  I don’t mean that just in terms of an individual person’s attunement growing stronger — although that’s certainly important, and we’ll get to details on that later on.

  The first factor of change that I’m mentioning is magical specializations. Different attuned naturally gravitate toward specific types of magic, and as they improve, their attunement subtly changes. The attunement adapts to generate a larger amount of that mana type in the body, which allows the attuned to use it more easily. In extreme cases, this can cause the mark itself to change. In my case, for example, I am highly specialized in fire magic, and my attunement mark reflects this by having a distinct fire modification.

  The other change is even more interesting. The goddess — or, perhaps the visages — are constantly updating the design and functions of types of attunements. My own Elementalist mark is subtly different from Patrick’s, because he has a more recent iteration of the mark than my own.

  Here’s a standard Elementalist mark, like Patrick’s.

  This is what my own mark looks like.

  Similarly, my father’s mark is different from either of ours, because he has an earlier mark. His looks like this.

  Now, a portion of these changes are due to the attunement levels being different, but some changes are a legacy of the age in which the attunements were given.

  Note the central line; in my father’s generation, this was longer, and had a tail. That is absent in both Patrick’s variant and my own.

  Similarly, the line that crosses through the center is somewhat different in all three versions.

  We refer to these different versions of each attunement as “attunement generations”. Since we began recording these changes about one hundred and seventy years ago, there have been fifteen different revisions to each attunement that have resulted in clear visible changes. The core symbol for each attunement has remained similar, but the outlying marks have changed substantially over time. Thus, we can assume that a new attunement generation occurs roughly once every ten years, give or take a few.

  There is also a strong possibility that there have been other, subtler changes that have not resulted in a visual difference in each attunement.

  You’re probably wondering why attunements are being changed. The answer is simple — the goddess is clearly still improving them. While the goddess is a being of tremendous power and knowledge that vastly outstrips our own, she is not all-knowing, and she is still capable of learning and improving.

  What are some of these improvements, you might ask?

  Well, for one thing, our modern attunements are demonstrably better at converting mana between different types than older generations. A hundred years ago, converting enough mana for a spell took several minutes, and then the attunement “held” that converted mana in the desired state until it was used. This meant you essentially had to ration out all the types of mana you wanted to use before going into a dangerous situation, rather than being able to convert mana freely like you can now.

  Another major improvement? Shrouds.

  Attunements have always caused some degree of mana to leak out, creating an aura...but that aura didn’t always have any sort of useful function.

  The very first recorded improvement to attunements — and the one that got us to start recording changes — was the implementation of the “defensive shroud” function, which manipulates the excess essence around an attuned into the type of barrier we use it for today. Prior to that, all that additional mana was s
imply wasted.

  Earlier versions of the defensive shroud had differences, too. Initially, only Citrine and higher level attuned had access to that shroud. It’s theorized that this is because earlier shroud-generation functions were less efficient, and required more of a shroud to have any use. It’s also possible that earlier versions required a larger amount of mana to be drawn from the attunement to make them function.

  You might be surprised by that last part, but yes, your attunement’s basic functions do use up a bit of your mana at all times. When we measure your safe mana usage, that’s already taken into account. The shroud is one of these autonomous functions, but there are other basic ones as well.

  The attunement is constantly monitoring the amount of mana in each part of your body, and that function requires some mana. The function that converts some of your mana also requires mana. Even the attunement functions that help regulate the flow of mana in your body require a little bit of your mana in order to work.

  For the Enchanters in the class, this might sound like an attunement is much like a magical item. You’re not wrong. In fact, attunements function almost identically to magical items — they’re just a thousand times more complex than a typical item. Your attunement rune replicates the functions of dozens, if not hundreds, of different types of enchantments.

  Artificial attunements, then, were created by understanding each of these functions and learning to replicate them. We’re still not perfect at making attunements ourselves — but like the goddess herself, we’re always learning.