Chapter 48

When Erick woke up, he Favored [Ward] for 75% less cost, which turned his 870 mana daily [Personal Ward] into a 1740 point generalized damage shield. Jane was right; he should have done this a while ago. It didn’t feel or look different than normal; he could still feel the air on his skin, his touch was not dulled. The subtle white glint on his fingernails and in the crook of his elbows had not changed, even though the [Ward] had doubled in power.

He almost spent 10 more points on Willpower so he could have put 1170 mana into his daily [Personal Ward], but his Class Ability Quest to double his mana said:

Class Ability Quest!

Enchant an item, or items, that give you twice as much Mana, then wear those items, consuming them in the process. 0/1

Reward: Double your Base Mana

Something told him that increasing his mana by 1200 points would be harder than increasing his mana by 900 points. He did buy [Metalshape], though, which was right past [Stoneshape], since he would need to enchant his gear himself.

Metalshape, medium range

Move medium amounts of metal around you for 5 minutes. Fine control. 100 MP

Quickly move medium amounts of metal around you for 1 minute. Fine control. 50 MP

[Metalshape] was practically a carbon copy of [Stoneshape], but much smaller.

Stoneshape X, medium range

Move large amounts of stone and sand around you for 5 minutes per level of the spell. Fine control. 100 MP

Quickly move large amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of the spell. Fine control. 50 MP

There was no [Jewelshape]. [Stoneshape] could work on jewels and glass, if the mage was skilled enough. Erick could already do glass to a certain extent; well enough to fix a window without [Mend] anyway. He would need to learn how to work with gems, but he needed the gems, first.

Hmm! Now that Erick was looking at [Metalshape] and [Stoneshape]...

Were there comparable skills for all of the Shaping spells? What was above [Airshape]? Anything? Erick searched the Script for [Plasmashape], then [Skyshape], then [Windshape], but got nothing; no results. Maybe there wasn’t a comparable skill—

[Soundshape]!?

… Nope. No [Soundshape]. That was the problem with searching the Script; unless you knew the exact name of what you were looking for, Search always returned zero results. Whatever! There was too much to do today to be worrying about the secrets of [Airshape], if there were any secrets in the first place.

Erick was ready for the day. Soon, he was outside of the house, Poi following, just as the sun was cresting over the eastern walls of the city. The sky was blue and cloudless, but there was hardly any noise. Sure, there were the distant sounds of a city waking up, but Erick missed the sounds of birds…

He missed the sounds of birds a lot, actually. Welp! No time like the present to pop out an attempt at [Familiar].

[Telepathy].

[Scry].

[Conjure Force Elemental].

A blue box appeared.

Summon Birds, close range, 270 MP per bird + Variable

Conjure a semi-permanent, random bird, that might, someday, not be a terror. Max of 9 birds available.

See through their eyes, Variable

Imbue them with spells, Variable

That text was disturbing, but the ‘bird’ that appeared on the ground in front of Erick did not look that dangerous. It was a cousin to a kiwi bird, if anything. Flightless and cute, like a fuzzy white coconut on chopstick legs, it looked at Erick and clicked its chopstick-like beak at him, before trilling out a melody of birdsong.

Erick laughed loud.

Erick’s laugh startled the poor little thing, but only for a second. It went right back to birdsong; chirping and singing some random sing-song trills and squeaks, extending its neck and body-length beak out ahead as it hopped and strutted over to the garden. Erick turned to Poi, to see that Teressa had come out of the house, following the noise. She stood behind Poi, smiling at the bird, then walked back inside, humming some tune.

“No songbirds in Spur, eh?” Erick asked. “No migratory birds, either?”

“None, sir.” Poi said, “Rats tend to flourish well enough, especially now that the shadowolves are dead, but the farm cats hunt everything that isn’t a chicken.”

“I’ve seen cats kill chickens before?”

“Everyone has to eat, sir.”

“True enough.” Erick nodded, then turned back to his kiwi bird. The white coconut was gently stepping through the potatoes. Erick put some mana into his thoughts, and pressed at the bird.

‘Hello, little guy.’

The coconut bird instantly crouched down, then looked around. He turned and saw Erick.

‘Yup. It’s me talking to you.’

The bird went abso-fucking-lutely insane, screaming a shrill cry into the sky as it leapt up and raced at Erick, its beak snapping in rage, its claws tearing across the dirt, its tiny, tiny wings flapping as hard as they could flap. Erick, startled, pulled the plug. The bird vanished in a poof and swirl of white mana, its corporeal form nothing more than a memory.

“Okay. So. That was a failure. I didn’t mean to get waylaid with this, but...” Erick looked up at the lemon tree. “Let’s start off in the air, perhaps.”

[Summon Birds].

A parrot appeared on a branch, then squawked loud enough to raise the dead. That one turned to white mist, too. So did the next seven birds, each of them posing their own problem. A rooster crowed at the sunrise, louder than the parrot. A hummingbird instantly starting attacking Erick the second he touched the bird’s mind. An ostrich the size of an orcol was not given the opportunity to do harm; that was was an instant banish. He tried to summon two birds at once, but only got a single quail that did nothing but run away. He tried to summon two birds, again, but got a single eagle that he quickly banished; its eyes were full of hunger, and it was looking at him. Then came another parrot, then a pigeon, neither of which were good for anything at all.

Then came a starling, summoned atop the stone table by the garden.

Erick touched its mind, and it did not recoil, or attack; it just stayed there, gently looking at Erick with pure white eyes.

‘Hello, little starling. How are you this morning?’

The bird cocked its head, but did nothing.

‘My name is Erick Flatt. Would you like to join me to walk around town today? I’ve got some errands to run. Or, you could just stick around here.’ Erick gestured to his house, then the garden. ‘Any place you want.'

The starling turned toward the house, then silently flitted up to the second story veranda to latch onto the railing and look out across the city.

Erick pushed a different bit of mana at the bird, trying to [Scry].

His viewpoint switched, just like with the normal spell, but the starling’s eyesight was much better than Erick’s. He could count the veins on a leaf, a hundred feet away. The starling moved its eyes as though Erick was controlling a [Scry]; the animal was under his control. Erick released the [Scry]. After his sight returned to his own eyes, Erick tried to cast a spell through the bird. He started with [Cleanse Aura], but the aura popped up around him; not the bird. Thick air flowed around Erick for a second before he canceled the spell and tried again.

His aura did not pop up out of the white starling. Erick had encountered this problem with the normal [Conjure Force Elemental]; he needed a matched pair of birds to cast an aura at range. And since he couldn’t seem to summon a pair of birds at a time with this spell…

Just to be sure. He summoned another bird, aiming for something small. A parakeet appeared on his open palm. Before the bird freaked out, Erick began releasing mana into the air. The parakeet fluffed in anger, but quickly relaxed and stayed on Erick’s palm, soaking up mana, flicking his tiny fluffy body like he was in a bird bath, splashing bits of white mana through the air.

The starling on the second floor veranda just stared.

Erick pushed [Cleanse Aura] into the smaller bird, aiming for the starling on the railing, but the starling did not get a [Cleanse Aura]; the parakeet did. The parakeet also instantly flew into a rage and was summarily banished. Erick frowned. Then he looked up at the starling.

Erick held out his arm like it was a bird stand; level and strong enough to support the starling’s weight, then mentally commanded the bird to land on his arm. The starling winged down to Erick, making no noise as it landed on his arm. The bird was a lot heavier than it appeared; it was under a foot tall, but it stared into Erick’s eyes, understanding what was about to happen.

“If I can’t imbue spells at range, then this is a failure.” Erick said, “Sorry, little guy.”

The starling spread its wings wide as it turned to mist.

Erick frowned at the dissipating cloud, then mentally grabbed the box for [Summon Birds] and crushed it, breaking something inside of himself at the same time. [Telepathy], [Scry], and [Conjure Force Elemental] all felt a tiny bit different; like old friends who had lost touch with one another. They couldn't reconnect right now, but they could heal, then rejoin in some other way, some other day.

Erick sighed.

- - - -

The lady at the bank had Erick’s account ready in ten minutes.

She slid Erick a slip of paper, “Here is your current balance, sir.”

Erick’s dispensation from cleaning out Frontier and Kal’Duresh had come in; 5200 gold in 10 mana rads, each worth 5g apiece, as well as 9 grand-rads, each worth 1000g. His account balance before this was only 2400g, but now it had ballooned to…

To something that was not enough, considering his talks of adventuring gear with his daughter. The sort of gear Erick wanted was too expensive. He had to make it himself, of course, and that cut the cost considerably, but then there were mistakes to account for, as well as learning, and probably a whole bunch of smaller costs that Erick had yet to even imagine.

He needed to drop by the Mage Guild. He wanted to talk to Sizzi, anyway. Maybe they had remedial enchanting classes he could take, or at least some books on the subject. Erick had read that one Ancient Script for enchanting book Ulrick Ulrick had let him borrow. Knowing the Ancient Script had given him a starting point, but he needed actual reference material.

Erick thanked the bank lady; he would be back later.

- - - -

Erick sat with Sizzi in a corner of the lobby of the Mage’s Guildhouse; she had already handed him a small journal detailing her personal journey of failed [Familiar] attempts for the last several years.

“Tier 3 is as high as a responsible summoner will go, so it’s not a big deal to take a decade to get a [Familiar]. Some of us even consider [Familiar] —not the one in the Script, mind you— to be the pinnacle of the art.”

“You don’t want to create a living creature; I understand.”

“Exactly. I can already do practically everything I want with the base spell, so a [Familiar] is technically a luxury, and as a luxury, there’s a list of requirements.” Sizzi said, “It’s all in that journal; I recorded the results of each day.” She explained, “I need the ability to imbue the [Familiar] at range through either a paired summon or as a basic ability. To summon the same [Familiar] with the same false-mind each time. To have it be under five kilos and an acceptable shape; I’ve aimed for everything from rabbits to cats to birds, but almost anything is acceptable. To have it not decay too quickly. And finally, for it to have all the normal abilities of a [Familiar] with [Scry] and [Telepathy]. As a bonus, speaking through it would be good, but not necessary.” She said, “It’s a very basic list, but it’s very, very hard to hit all of those buttons.”

“How would you rank those in terms of importance?”

“The only one that’s unimportant is the shape, but that’s also the easiest to hit.” She said, “If you can’t hit them all, then you’re creating something that will never last; the point is to have a [Familiar], not something that needs a year to figure out what it is, every time you summon it.”

“Have you considered letting the creature choose its own form?”

Sizzi winced. “Yes. That does not turn out well. I do it that way every tenth day, anyway, just to try out something new. Most of the time you just get a collection of horrors, like tentacles or spikes or mouths. I actually hit almost all my goals once, but the creature that came out was a three meter-tall collection of fangs.” She shivered. “I could not keep that one. If it was smaller, I might have, but just— no. Not happening.” She added, “Go ahead and try to combine the spells any way you want, but if you don’t get all those aspects I listed, you’re better off breaking the spell and trying again. And by the way, I’m glad to see you’re doing okay.”

Erick smiled. “I’m feeling a lot better, but I’m taking a step back from SLR Particle spells, for now. Going to try for some large-sized stuff, though.”

Sizzi frowned. “Are you… sure?”

“Yes. I switched out a Class ability.” Erick said, “What happened out there should not happen again.”

“Oh?” Sizzi paused in surprise, then said, “Good? Good! Mother will be glad to hear that.”

“How did it look for you guys?”

Sizzi paled, saying, “Mother says that blood just started pouring out of you, flowing red for only the briefest moments before coming out as clear water. She’d never seen such a thing before; everyone was panicking. Poi jabbed you with that rod of [Treat Wounds] as fast as he could; the red would return only to be washed away again.”

Erick shivered. “Can you tell her that I’m sorry for giving her such a fright?”

“Of course.”

Erick added, “Oh. And I need to know what sort of books I should buy to learn more about enhancement enchantment. Do you have any idea where I should look for that?”

“You can buy those sorts of books in the Library. Just ask Tamarim. I think he’s the librarian today.”

“… I can?”

She said under her breath, “Most people can’t.”

Erick laughed.

- - - -

Orangescale Tamarim loaded Erick up with three textbooks from the enchanting course taught at the Mage’s Guild, and two advanced books, special ordered and kept in stock for special people passing through Spur, or people like Erick.

“We’re in the middle of a semester right now, but if you want to attend class, you can. It’s mostly remedial stuff and it’s all in these first three books, anyway. You’d be in class with 17 year old kids; freshly matriculated.”

“Maybe some other time. How much are these books?”

“20g for the normal textbooks, 117 for the other two. The advanced ones are put out by the Arcanaeum Consortium, and are updated every five years.” Tamarim grinned, saying, “I cannot wait to see what next year’s edition holds. They’re probably going to have to switch to new editions every year for a while.” Tamarim stilled. He chuckled. He smiled as he said, “Maybe... There’ll be new editions every year for the rest of my life.”

Erick laughed as he collected his books into his shoulderbag. “Thanks, Tamarim. Charge my account?”

“Of course, Archmage.”

- - - -

Erick stood under a [Weather Ward] just outside of the temple in the farms. Valok, Apogough, Krakina, and Poi stood nearby. Platinum rain fell all around them in a very peculiar pattern, because the sky was a checkerboard of silver clouds and blue, for miles and miles around; well past the edge of the farms. Erick felt his mana strain, gradually dipping down. It was actually difficult to maintain this configuration, even with all of his modifiers and Sculpt Spell. He let his [Exalted Storm Aura] flex back to almost normal; clouds flowed together, slowly. Erick tried to keep the cloud mostly out of Spur. But just to make sure...

Erick cast a [Scry], high into the air, then rushed it up, through the glimmering storm. He broke the upper surface and turned the [Scry] eye around, to look down.

Looking down from on high, the silver storm looked like a moon being eclipsed by Spur; like someone had taken a bite out of a cookie. The edges of the cloud were well past the farmland, and even with his initial guesses to correct for the new edge of the storm, he was raining in the city; Erick made minor adjustments here and there so the spell stayed out of Spur. This was much easier than the checkerboard pattern; that was just showing off. Erick could hold this new configuration without any problems at all.

Erick came back to himself, and said, “It’s sorted, now. We won’t have to move the temple.”

Krakina said, “Show off! Sculpt Spell, yes?”

Erick smiled. “I switched out some things after that accident.”

“This is good.” Krakina nodded, saying, “I have Sculpt Spell, too. It is a good choice! Much better than whatever nonsense you were doing before.” She pointed to the sky with a wing, saying, “That square pattern was impressive, though.”

Apogough said, “I agree.”

Valok said, “We’ll need to talk about increasing the size of the farms.”

“We’re already meeting all of our orders.” Apogough said, “We can increase the cattle pasture, though. Things are getting tight there and my father is looking to expand.”

“Then we'll have more mimics to deal with.” Valok looked out across the rainy land. “This is a lot of land to defend.”

Erick said, “Do you need me to clear out the mimics every day?”

Valok shook his head. “No. The Adventuring Guild is packed; there’s more and more people coming to Spur every day, and a lot of them start off hunting mimics. Some of them always show up bright and early to kill the mimics that have moved near the farms. The problem, is at night, when the mimics come into the farms and the only defense is the Guard.”

Krakina chanced, “Pasture land should tie the mimics up long enough for them to not get too far?”

“I agree.” Apogough said, “Since we can’t build walls, let’s try pasture land for a while. We’re not going to forgo this opportunity.”

“Agreed,” Valok said.

“How are the monster cows coming along, anyway?” Erick asked.

“Rather well.” Apogough said, “There was that one that got turned into jerky, but it tasted great, so… There wasn’t even any problems with the butchering, because it was automatically [Cleanse]ed. There’s a small debate over whether it was ethical to kill the animal that way, but some people are weird about how they like to butcher animals. It died practically instantly, so those people are in the minority.”

Krakina said, “Those people were just mad they didn’t get to sell the kill rights.”

“Enough chatting.” Valok said, “Good work, Erick; now we gotta do the same.”

"See you later," Erick said.

Valok started walking away. Krakina and Apogough each gave a farewell nod to Erick before they followed Valok down the path, each to their own jobs.

Erick and Poi went to the temple. Under a stone roof, out of the rain, Erick took out his beginner enchanter book and began reading, while platinum rain fell all around, and the sounds of joyful cows mooing rounded out a peaceful farmland ambiance. He used [Scry] occasionally to check and see if his aura was raining across town. It was. He pulled back his aura a bit here and there; [Exalted Storm Aura] mostly stayed in place.

Sometimes people popped his [Scry] eye if he got too close; sometimes they waved.

He didn’t [Scry] for very long; only long enough to ensure the rain was where it needed to be. The rest of the time, he read.

- - - -

… how to construct a rhyme in Ancient Script, yes, yes. Erick had used this schema many times, but seeing it laid out before him in an academic setting was quite different than what he had been doing. Apparently, proper enchanting created a resonance between the rhyme and the spell. Ancient Script was used for multiple reasons, but also because all the words sounded so much alike that this helped to reinforce that resonance…

Erick read that chapter a few times.

… spell circles to enchant force-based spells, or healing magic, or mana alterings, all of them slightly different, because this is how magic propagates…

… this is how magic resonates...

How mana propagates and resonates? Eh. Sure. Erick rolled with that reasoning, though he had no idea what it actually meant.

… shaping spells are difficult to put into a wand, and this is why…

… mental imagery, yadda yadda yadda...

That made sense. In Erick’s experience, Shaping spells required a lot of mental imaging. It made sense that Shaping spells did not take well to being enchanted, because enchanted objects were static replicas of an enchanter’s ability.

… Base Stat enhancements are done like this…

Oh!

Oh! Enhancement enchantments. Now this was interesting. Hmm. If Erick was understanding this right, creating a Stat enhancement enchantment was about creating a resonance between the enchanter’s own Stat and trapping that resonance inside a suitable item. Good materials for this trapping included diamonds, at the very bottom of the list, then there were rubies, or other red gems, for the physical stats, or sapphires, or other blue gems, for the mental stats. Perfectly white pearls were the best for all enhancement, though.

Well that seemed completely arbitrary!

Erick switched to the more advanced tomes…

… And almost instantly went back to the textbooks. The tomes were chock full of diagrams and numbers and math. So much math.

Veird might not be as technologically advanced as Earth, but they certainly had a lot of math. That graph looked like calculus, that other graph looked like sine and cosine stuff. Tangents and areas plotted out in three dimensions, spheres and bouncing internal waves based on— Erick was out of his league.

Enchanting was a lot of math, and Erick appreciated all of that, but he could not do this level of math.

Erick quickly went through the table of contents and found the section on enhancement enchantments.

… He read for a while, switching back and forth between books, trying to understand what he was reading. After a while, he did discover something that he might have to ask a real mage about, because, like he had guessed, using colored stones to ensure a better enchantment might actually be correct, but not because of the color.

Erick had a working theory, but revealing it would be revealing the nature of light.

The resonances of the four different stats were all different, and each of them had a secondary resonance past the first that translated into the actual MP or HP or either Regen stat. To create an enhancement enchantment was to replicate a portion of one’s own matching resonance inside a gem. The various colors of red matched Strength, Vitality, HP, and HP regen, while the various colors of blue matched Willpower Focus, MP, and MP regen.

To sum it up: Base Stats either had a resonance that was predominately Red, or Blue, and thus, those types of gems helped to resonate with those Base Stats.

There was a reason clear diamonds were poor, but acceptable, enchanting items, and that was because they picked up on all resonances equally. Diamonds took a very skilled enchanter to get them properly enchanted. There was a reason pearls were great, and that was because they were, firstly, something that bridged the gap between magic and flesh, and secondly, they were opaque, and blocked out all other resonances. The second factor was actually both a drawback and a bonus, because it took a lot of skill to press the desired resonance into the pearl, but once it was in there, it stuck around for a long time. The first factor, with pearls bridging a gap between magic and flesh, was because they were very, very similar to a rad, and that boosted all resonances up, doubling the effectiveness of the enhancement enchantment.

One factor all gems had in common, though, was that perfect spheres were best.

To make a gem hold an enchantment, you needed to ‘skip’ the enchantment around the interior of the gem. Anything that prevented this perfect containment of the desired resonance, from interior flaws, to outside edges, would weaken the enchantment, and cause it to fail faster than it would otherwise.

Because, what enhancements were doing, was increasing a person’s resonance with a Stat in a specific way. ‘Equipping’ or ‘using’ that enhancement would eventually break down an enchantment past the point of emergence into Reality, as a person’s personal magical resonance was always shifting, while an enchantment was static.

But if a mage enchanted their own gear, then the resonance between a mage and their gear degraded much slower than someone just going to a store and buying an enchantment. Enchanting your own gear also made repairing that gear much easier...

Erick was going back through all of the books for the fourth time, when Poi stepped up to the side.

Erick turned to him. “Uh?”

“We’ve been here for an extra hour, sir.” Poi gestured to the farms. People were still farming. “Though I don’t think they mind.”

Erick turned off the rain, stretching as the mana drain on his body relaxed. He said, “I’ve got some questions for some enchanters.” He began packing away his books. “You know anyone besides Ulrick Ulrick? Though I think I’ll go there first.”

“I would have recommended him, anyway, sir.”

- - - -

‘Ulrick's Unusuals’ was located at the end of Market Street, near the wall, which should have been a dark part of town because of all the tall, narrow buildings, but it was not. Lightwards of all kinds lit the area with multicolored glows; some of them streetlights, some of them new businesses that had opened up since the last time Erick had been this way. Erick looked around at all the new shops, then opened the door under Ulrick’s large glowing business sign, and walked in. The store was as full of enchanted knives, wands, and rods as it was all the other times Erick had been to see the man, or to buy one of those rods of [Treat Wounds]—

Oh. That reminded him: he needed to pick up some of those grand-rads at the bank and store his rod of [Treat Wounds] next to the grand-rads, so that it could recharge.

— Ulrick kept under thicker glass, toward the back of the showroom floor. The showroom was empty right now; Erick was the only one in the store besides the pinkscale cashier behind the counter, named Soux. She smiled as Erick walked to her.

“Greetings, Archmage,” said Soux. “How can I help you?”

“Just wanted to ask Ulrick a few questions about enchanting. Is he in? Would he mind talking for a little while? I’ll buy some desserts and teas at that new shop across the way. It looks nice.”

Tealscale Ulrick stepped out from his workshop in the room behind the counter, saying, “I thought I heard your voice. I’m ready for lunch. I’ll pick the place; let’s go.”

Erick smiled. “Following you, then.”

- - - -

Ulrick picked an upscale place located on the fifth floor of a building on Market Street. The restaurant was built high up enough to see over the city walls, with a large view that went from the northeast, to the west, to the south. It also looked expensive. There were only six tables in view, and all of them were semi-private, with ferns or ornate wooden dividers or architecture separating them.

Before Erick knew it, a goldscale server had guided Erick and Ulrick to a table beside a large window, the farms of Spur stretching out to the west; vivid green and golden wheat under a blue sky, surrounded by the browns of the Crystal Forest. Erick had vivid flashbacks of his first time talking to Anhelia, until—

“I’m paying, so order whatever you want. They can make anything.” Ulrick spoke to the server, “I’d like the lunch platter, as usual.” He said to Erick, “It’s a little bit of everything on their menu; they had fried potatoes the last time I was here two days ago.”

“I’ll have the same.” Erick added, “With some fried chicken?”

Goldscale said, “As you wish, sir. And to drink?

Ulrick said, “A bottle of Crim’s Son’s Red.”

The server bowed and walked away.

Ulrick smiled, sighing, looking out to the west. “It’s so nice to see the farms so green. And huge! I hope its going well out there. I saw that checkerboard stunt at the beginning and I have a bet going; Class Ability change, right?”

Erick chuckled. “Yeah. Sculpt Spell.”

Ulrick smacked one hand into the other. “I knew it!”

“They’re going to expand the pasture land for now, so it should get even greener in a few days.”

“It’s really beautiful to see this change, Erick—”

The server arrived with a bottle of red wine. He uncorked it, and began pouring into two cut-crystal glasses. Ulrick took his; Erick took his, and remembered his first trials with light wards. He loved that green cut crystal one he made; he needed to make a few more and scatter them across the house. In fact, he could redo all the lights in his house. They were all kinda plain.

Ulrick held up his glass. “To a wonderful, green Spur.”

Erick smiled, holding up his glass. “To a green Spur.”

The wine tasted nice; a bit bitter, but it was a good red, and Ulrick seemed to like it.

“So! Enchant me with your questions.”

Erick smiled, and began, “Why the focus on gems? Why not use colored glass? I see it in the church’s stained glass windows. It can’t be that hard to make.”

Ulrick smiled. “You’re talking about enhancement enchantments. I thought we were going to discuss spell enchantments. Maybe even getting one of your new spells into a staff. Eh. Eh?”

“Not today.” Erick shook his head a little, then quickly changed the subject; he was not about to let his magic out into the world until he had a better idea of what it would do. "So why not colored glass?"

Ulrick sipped his wine, asking, “Have you tried enchanting something yet?”

Erick grinned. “Besides entirely new spells?”

“Yes.” Ulrick chuckled. “Besides that.”

“Just got the books today. I’d like to really know about the gems thing, though. It seemed as though you only use gems because of the color and pearls, specifically, because they’re semi-magical, and almost like a rad.”

“Today?” Ulrick laughed. He smiled, saying, “You don’t use glass— Eh. You can use glass, but the enhancements you get out of it are weak; glass cannot handle the magical resonance needed to produce something past a single stat point increase. You want a strong, pure gem that is able to handle the resonance you’re putting in. Conversely, with a spell enchantment, you want pure metal; something that you can imprint with a spell, and then someone can activate later.”

“About that: What’s the difference? Can’t you put a spell into a gem?”

“Enhancements are drawn upon all the time; you need something that can take the constant stress of being linked to someone’s personal resonance. Thus, a gem, with a contained enhancement. But you don’t use a spell all the time— Ah. Correction: If you’re making an aura-wand, you want to use both a high, high grade pearl, and a metal rod. You can’t get away with a wand for those types of enchantments. You’d probably be better off using a staff, anyway.” Ulrick added, “Anyway. For the all-the-time-drains of an enhancement, you need a resonant gem. For the sometimes-drain, you need metal.” He added, “And glass can’t do any of that.”

Erick sipped his wine while Ulrick talked. He asked, “How strong is your glass?”

“It’s not about strength.” Ulrick tapped the glass window. “They thread this stuff with metal—”

“They do?” Erick looked at the window again.

“— They do. And it’s damn strong, physically. But it resonates, physically, when exposed to enchanting magics. Glass can’t handle the stress of multivariable magical resonance. So. We use gems. Red for physical stats, blue for mental, because those colors automatically resist non-related resonances. Along the array of Red and Blue, there are specific colors that are better for certain enhancements. Crimson is great for Strength, while Cinnabar is great for Vitality, for example.”

“What about for non-Stat enchants? Like, for cost reduction? Can you do that?”

“Yes, but like all enchantments, you have to have that ability already within yourself to be able to reproduce it into an enchantment.” Ulrick waved his hand, saying, “And all of those types of enchantments burn out after one, maybe two, uses. Expensive to make for little gain. Maybe 3 percent? 5 at the max, and that’s with grade XX pearls. Though cost reduction is one of the most powerful uses of an XX pearl; no one would fault you for trying to produce such an item.”

“How much are those worth?”

“A basic 5 pearl will take a 5 of a Stat, or 100 of HP, MP, or a Regen, and run you a 100 gold, and last anywhere from 10 to 50 drains, depending on how strenuously it’s used and if you’ve enchanted it yourself. An X pearl will take 10 Stats, 200 secondary Stat, and is worth maybe 1000g.”

“I mean… how much do those pearls cost me? Not if I wanted to sell something like that.”

“100g for a 5, 1000g for an X. Double-X pearls are 5000 to 6000 gold. You don’t see many of those XX pearls, though, the price isn’t very stable. You can use those for 20 base, or 400 secondary stat, but people only use those for stuff like cost reduction. You can also put Cost Reduction in a rod, but that'll still run you—" Ulrick frowned. He said, "The pricing for certain items is very difficult to gauge. A 50% Cost Reduction rod could be 500 gold, because it only works as Clarity, while another 5% reduction rod is worth 10,000 gold, because it works after Clarity and Favored Spell. But that's a deep topic and we don't need to get lost in the forest, just yet. Let's get back to the pearls.”

Erick waited, listening, drinking his wine.

“You can sell enchanted pearls for double that buying price, but if you’re good, and your stuff lasts a long time, and you’re known for making quality products, you can sell for 3 to 5 times the material costs, and no one would think poorly of you.”

“I know enhancement enchantments get ‘used up’, like rads, but how does it happen? Can you recharge them like spell-wands?”

Ulrick scrunched his face. “That’s a complicated topic. If you take care of an enhancement enchantment and don’t stress them too much, too fast, you can salvage the parts for another enchantment, after the original enchantment drops below its emergence value. If you have a little bit of enchantment ability, you can even use rads to tap-in to the enhancement enchantment in your item and spin it up, back past its emergence value and up to full strength.” He said, “I don’t recommend that while you’re out in the field, though; you risk breaking the item prematurely.” He added, "And you can't just leave your old plus-20 rings in a bowl with your grand-rads and expect them to charge; it takes finesse to get them back up to full power."

“How much are diamonds? For enchanting.”

“1g? 5g? Cheap. Maybe 10g for a diamond already cut for enchantment?” Ulrick said, “I haven’t done those in a while. The metal I use is— I saw the wrought bars you had at your party. You know how expensive that stuff is. We use the same grades of metal for enchanting.”

Erick winced. “Ouch.”

Ulrick smiled. “Yup.” He added, “But people are inventing these [Iron Grab] spells all over the place; I foresee metal prices dropping by a lot.”

The server arrived with two Lunch Platters. Both of them had a wide variety of finger foods; flat breads, sauces both savory and creamy, pan-fried vegetables, slice meats, fried potatoes, tiny salads. Erick’s even had some fried chicken strips. And the smell? Divine! Erick’s mouth salivated.

Erick stared at his food, grinning. “This looks great.”

Ulrick smiled. “It tastes better than it looks.”

Erick started with the bread and a creamy-looking violet-tinted sauce. He tasted it, and yup, it was purple, not-tomato based. He asked, “How many enchantments can a person wear at a time? Is there a limit?”

Ulrick was already dipping his flat breads in his orange sauce and adding meat to it, like Indian cuisine. He said, “Not really. The more you wear the faster they all burn out, so people stick to one or two pieces—” He shook his head, frowning. “And then they die, when those fail them at the wrong time.” He held his orange bread in one hand, saying, “Like I told you that one time: enhancement enchantments kill people. Stick to spell-rod enchanting if you want a clear conscience.”

Erick nodded, eating his lunch.

After a bit, Ulrick said, “Those 500 gold belts and diadems you see in the shops around here? The ones that give you 30 of a base stat? They do that by stringing together multiple inferior gems, producing a product that lasts only 2 to 4 pools, at most. Those enchanters are a menace.”

Erick countered, “But if you don’t use those stats, those items can be a lifesaver.”

Ulrick frowned, then he nodded, saying, “Reluctantly, I agree. For most mages, a cheap 30 Strength belt can last many adventures.”

Erick chuckled. And then he had a thought.

Oh.

Damn.

He should get one of those belts, shouldn’t he?

- - - -

Lunch was great; the discussion was almost as good as the food.

Ulrick refused to give Erick an idea of where to go to buy one of those 30 Strength belts. The tealscale enchanter hated all of the ‘charlatan con-artist’ Stat enchanters in Spur. He hated the whole profession, and could not, in good conscience, direct Erick toward any of them.

If Erick ever wanted to make a [Domain of the Withering Slime] staff, though, Ulrick was the man for the job. Erick would have to think about that before he made such a thing.

… He would have to think about that, quite a lot.

Poi knew where to go to buy a 30 Strength belt.

- - - -

‘Ruby’s Reds’ was a landmark of Spur, and a franchise that was popular in all the neutral cities of the Crystal Forest, from Portal, to Spur, to Outpost, to Vindin, in the far, far north. The outside of the store was covered in lightwards that looked like huge red dragon scales, or they might have been normal-sized dragon scales; Erick had never officially met a dragon. A dragon's scales could be a foot wide; Erick didn't know.

Erick passed under an archway of ruby scales, into a store lined with all sorts of magical-looking paraphernalia and shimmering doodads. Swords hung on walls, glimmering with fire and light. Gently glowing red potions were stacked seven deep and twenty wide, next to a similar display of blue potions, and then smaller displays of orange, then teal. Ornate robes hung on plain mannequins, next to staffs topped with huge spherical gems. A hundred rings of all kinds were under glass, next to crowns both ornate and plain, with necklaces and belts much the same; a lot of them holding at least one visible gem, or pearl, while some of them had no visible enchantment anchor at all. Erick would have mistaken some of them for boring pieces of leather, if not for their positions under glass, and under the watchful eyes of guards and salespeople.

One of those salespeople walked toward Erick from the other side of the glass counter. She was a beautiful incani woman, with bright violet eyes and skin, with wavy white hair and wearing a nice, pale pink dress. Her backswept horns were decorated with simple gold rings.

“Hello, Archmage Flatt,” said the woman. “Welcome to Ruby’s Reds. I’m Carnelia. How may I assist you, today?”

Erick smiled, pointing to a belt in the display. “Are these Strength belts?”

“Yes they are. Would you like to see one?”

“How high do they go, Stat-wise?”

Carnelia reached into the glass case from her side and pulled out two belts, one of them ornate, with several or a dozen red gems encased in metal rivets around the length, the other plain. Erick couldn’t tell where the gems were on that one until Carnelia flipped the belt inside out; the gems were on rivets on the inside. In both cases, the red gems were under a layer of glass. Each gem had to be under half a centimeter, and spherical.

She said, “It’s just a matter of preference, really. Both of these provide 20 Strength, though we have some that go as high as 50, and others as low as 5. We guarantee that all of these basic belts will last at least 2 pools before their resonance drops below emergence. If you find fault with one, you can bring it in and testify to any of our salespeople under truthstone and get a replacement, for free.”

Erick touched the belts. He liked the plain one. 2 iterations was more than enough. “How much for this one?”

“200 gold.”

“And a similar one in 30, and 50?”

“500, and 5000.”

“Oh. That goes up pretty fast.”

Carnelia smiled, saying, “We have a duty toward quality, sir.”

“I’m not complaining.” Erick pointed to the plain belt. “Can I see this in 30 Strength?”

Carnelia smiled, and with a little bow, said, “Of course, sir.” She placed the belts back into the display case, saying, “And I must say that I truly appreciate the rain.”

“Enough for a discount?” Erick smirked.

“How’s 10% off sound?”

Erick laughed. “Good to me.”

“I can extend you this discount for almost all goods you wish to purchase at my store, so don’t be afraid to come on in for all your enchanting needs.”

“Oh? This is your store? You look so young, though.”

Carnelia smirked. “Flattery will still only get you 10% off.” She stepped away, saying, “I’ll be right back with a belt in your size.”

Erick watched her duck through a room divider of hanging red-glass beads. The beads didn’t have a chance to settle before Carnelia returned, carrying a simple brown leather belt. She held the belt up, then wrapped it around her own waist, then set it on the counter in front of Erick.

Erick paused. “Why wrap it around your own waist?”

Carnelia paused. Then she said, “Because it is customary to do so when retrieving an enchanted item from out of view, before you let the customer inspect it, to show that it isn’t cursed.”

“… That’s a thing? Cursed items, I mean?”

Carnelia nodded. “The Shades like to create such items and sprinkle them around as traps. Unsavory people sometimes sell them to merchants, and those merchants sometimes resell them to the unwary.”

Erick looked to Poi.

Poi said, “She is correct, sir, and has been a valued citizen of Spur for many years. The Guard has never had a valid complaint against any of her wares.”

Carnelia touched the belt on the counter, saying, “Please, see for yourself. For you, this one is 450 gold.”

Erick nodded, uncommitted, then picked up the belt. It looked very plain, which was the point. Equally spaced around the inside of the belt were red spherical gems, in iron rivets and under glass. Erick put it on. He felt a large shift in his body, like he had suddenly shifted the last five years of his life into too much time spent at the gym. He checked his Status.

Erick Flatt

Human, age 48

Level 39, Class: Particle Mage

Exp: 659,855,559/10,233,415,500

Class: 3/6

Points: 15

HP

600/1500

600

MP

900/900

6000 per day

Strength

20

+30

[50]

Vitality

20

+0

[20]

Willpower

30

+0

[30]

Focus

50

+0

[50]

Favored Spell waiting!

Carnelia said, “The first iteration up to full HP does not count for our guaranteed 2 iterations.” She added, “If you naturally gain up to your cap, the enchantment will last much longer. If you force it with healing, then we can only guarantee the 2 promised iterations. With careful consideration and minimal draining, you can easily make one of our belts last 10 or more iterations.”

“What happens if I get this HP and take the belt off?”

“They turn into False HP, and you will gradually lose them.” Carnelia said, “The rate of decay is based on many different factors, but the main ones are time and activity. Please understand that taking the belt off and losing those HP will count against the guaranteed 2 iterations.”

“I have to wear it the whole time, then?” Erick took off the belt, and felt drained. “Ohh. That’s a… That’s strange.”

Carnelia said, “Wearing it all the time is the only way to keep the benefits, yes.”

Erick looked at the belt. He thought. He asked, “Do you have Strength rings? Or something easier to wear and not have to take off?”

Carnelia gestured to the rings and jewelry in the glass case three steps to the right. “Over here.” She pulled out a steel ring with one thumb-nail sized, red spherical gem. “This one is 10 Strength and is 500 gold, or 450 for you. Wearing more than one magical ring on one hand will cause destructive resonance.”

The price just kept going up; likely because there were so many fewer gems used in this one’s construction. There were at least 10 gems in the belt, and that gave 30 Strength. One gem here gave 10 Strength. This one gem must have a much better enchantment than the belt.

Erick looked to the belt, and then to the ring. The ring… He could certainly wear that all the time.

“I’ll take the ring.”

Carnelia smiled softly, and did a small curtsy. “As you wish, Archmage.”

After Carnelia resized the ring with [Metalshape], and after Erick paid for the ring with his Mage’s Guild badge and some paperwork, Erick walked out of Ruby’s Reds with a subtle red ring on his left hand, pointer finger. He felt a lot stronger, like he was in the prime of his life. Though he didn’t suddenly grow muscles, he felt healthier in a very primal way.

Erick Flatt

Human, age 48

Level 39, Class: Particle Mage

Exp: 659,855,559/10,233,415,500

Class: 3/6

Points: 15

HP

617/900

600

MP

900/900

6000 per day

Strength

20n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

+10

[30]

Vitality

20

+0

[20]

Willpower

30

+0

[30]

Focus

50

+0

[50]

Favored Spell waiting!

His HP was already ticking up.

- - - -

Erick stopped by the bank on his way home and picked up three grand-rads at the bank.

This was the first time Erick had seen a grand-rad. He did not expect to be given what he was given.

All three of the grand-rads were slightly different, and none of them resembled the marquise cut of a thumbnail-bone-sized 10 mana rad, or the thumbnail-sized 5 mana rad. Grand-rads were each unique, and all three of the ones the bank had given Erick were palm-sized; each of them looking like a dozen different crystal-clear gems cut for maximum brilliance, all perfectly mushed together. There were no seams in these jewelers' nightmares.

According to Erick's enchanting books, all he’d need to do to recharge his rod of [Treat Wounds] was to store them together in an open-air environment. So that's what he was going to do.

- - - -

Erick stored the rod of [Treat Wounds] with two of the three grand-rads in a stone bowl on the kitchen table. After making himself some coffee, Erick got down to reading Sizzi’s journal in the sun room. It was light reading, mostly just tiny doodles and a list of check boxes, separated into bigger boxes with a date written large in the upper corner. Sometimes there were notes, but most of the time there were just boxes in boxes, either with check marks, or not.

The first page of the journal listed what the boxes meant.

{_} mana cost

[_] same familiar

[_] imbue at range, or a multi-summon

[_] slow decay

[_] all normal abilities

[_] acceptable shape

(_) total abilities

At the beginning of the journal, Sizzi was consistently hitting 2 out of her 5 goals. Toward the end, she was hitting 3 or 4 out of the 5. This journal looked like it only covered 4 years, though. There were a few notes here and there, and Erick read them, but the notes were all about the weirder results. She recorded the Script Spell box of each interesting result, but most of those Script Spell boxes were rather boring.

And then Erick found the entry for the 3 meter tall collection-of-fangs that hit all 4 of Sizzi’s big requirements. It had failed the proper shape requirement, of course. But beyond that, there were a few other obviously terrible parts to the spell that made the whole thing untenable.

Summon Xerzeril, medium range, 417 mana + Variable.

Summon a Xerzeril to do your bidding.

Xerzeril persist until killed or dismissed.

All Xerzeril are the same creature; to know one is to know them all.

Maximum 10 Xerzeril; summoning more than 10 will cause the least controlled to wander completely out of your control.

Imbue your Xerzeril with spells, wherever they are. Variable

See through the eyes of your Xerzeril. Variable

Communicate telepathically with your Xerzeril. Variable

Sizzi had also taken the time to draw several pictures of her Xerzeril.

It looked just like the Black Spiker; the one that had chased Erick and Jane in the Crystal Forest.

Erick frowned, mumbling to himself, “Either someone else created a Xerzeril, or that thing in the Forest was Mel’s. Since it chased us so methodically when it could have easily caught us… probably the second option. Maybe even both.” Erick set Sizzi's journal down. He sighed, “Like a lost dog chasing after its human.”