Shackled, p.16
Shackled, page 16
The clatter of someone rummaging in cabinets came from the kitchen, following the ring of metal bumping against something. Chairs scraped across the floor. Wood creaked and groaned. Something rustled gently, like sand poured from a bucket. A door slammed.
Silence.
Korrash sat, eyes wide, with his back against the wall, for another hour in the complete silence of the farmhouse. Nothing moved. Nothing rustled. No noises came from outside.
Reluctantly, he allowed himself to fall asleep.
Chapter Thirty-Six
A Farm on the Road to Krakensport, Kingdom of Eastmere
Korrash awakened slowly from a dreamless sleep. It still seemed strange to him to be able to sleep. Was that because he was an elf? Wait, he was an elf! Why was he sleeping?
The motes of dust that danced in the sunbeam coming in through the window of the farmer’s cottage caught his eye. Each glowed with a halo beyond what it should be able to produce, and the beauty was strangely distracting. What had he been thinking about? Perhaps it was the new buff he’d just realized he had.
You have had a night of Otherworldly Slumber, reducing back pain by 70%. Any Experience gained is increased until the next Dawn. Certain skills may increase faster.
He smiled and stretched. It was time to be on his way; the road to Gnottingham was longer than he’d first thought. The brief trip he’d imagined hadn’t materialized, and he wanted to get his Specialty as soon as possible and get back to Sunblade.
He peeked into the kitchen, hoping that breakfast was a thing that happened at Maison de Doppleganger, but all he saw were the motionless forms of a farmwife and farmboy, each with far too much beard. They stood facing each other, frozen as if in mid-conversation. Their eyes were stretched wide, staring sidelong at him as he backed slowly out of the doorway. He didn’t want any part of whatever that was.
He made his way quickly to the front door. As he opened it, golden sunlight flooded over him, and he felt the True God’s order once more.
A new day has dawned. New secondary skills are unlocked:
The Old Ways: You have accessed knowledge lost to Mortalkind for an Age, and have begun to recall the safety measures invented to ward weaker beings against the Fae. With additional focus, you can learn to call on specific Fae for weal or woe. There is always a price for such an act, and it may not be something you are willing to pay.
Blissful Ignorance: This skill is useful when Counseling fails to reconcile traumatic experiences. It can suppress extreme reactions to things that you wish you hadn’t seen, yet cannot unsee. This skill does not provide any resistance to future encounters with the same trauma, or any basis for resisting similar trauma. It may also cause unexpected or extreme reactions to seemingly unrelated circumstances. Caution: Overuse of or over-reliance on this skill may cause unwanted mental effects, whether temporary or permanent. Sufficiently powerful exposure (more than two Tiers above Conviction or Willpower) may result in this skill making mental effects worse.
Staff: You have grown more familiar with using your staff as a weapon. Parries, blocks, and sweeps are now easier to perform.
The following skills have increased:
Blades: Your skill in murder has grown due to use of an unfamiliar blade type and lack of reliance on magical effects.
The too-bearded farmer was up in the wheat field, swinging a mattock as if digging a pit. He caught sight of Korrash and began to wave in a way that only served to showcase the fact that his elbows didn’t quite know how to be elbows.
“Take m’Laird anywhere? The Old Ways are swift-like!” He wiped sweat from his brow as he spoke, leaving his forehead smeared in something wet and brownish.
Korrash was assailed with images of dirt and bones and slithering things rushing by at unfathomable speeds.
“No, thanks,” he called as he quickened his pace down the path to the main road, shaking off the nausea that threatened to overtake him (Blissful Ignorance 1 success; Stamina 6 success).
He whistled a merry tune, the Farmhouse of Horrors at his back and the open road ahead of him. He ignored the hint of gold-hunger gnawing at him. This morning was a morning for enjoying himself!
Three hours later, he was tired of walking and not talking to anyone. No more bandits had accosted him. There hadn’t even been any intriguing paths cut into the trees beside the woods.
It was around noon when he sensed something lurking in the tall grass nearby (Perception 5 success). In a single, smooth motion, he reached his empty hand toward his staff, letting the mana flow through the implement and drawing back an imaginary bow string. A silvery arrow of mana shot forth, and he heard an unearthly scream as his projectile found its mark (Aetheric Projection 7 critical success). He rushed toward the sound, already preparing another blast of magic. Was it a Furrow Piglet? A Crowbold Shaman? An Electric Mouse?
It was a rabbit. Not even a horned rabbit, or one with quills instead of fur. Just a normal rabbit. He sighed as he quickly built a fire and skinned his “prize” (Survivalcraft 4 success). The meat was good, but he was still out of sorts. He needed something interesting to do.
After his meal was done, he stared at his slowly dying fire. He considered just leaving it to burn. By the time he came back this way in a few days, however, there could be a massive forest fire that he’d get to extinguish.
That would be fun, though it also seems kind of rude.
His thoughts turned sour as he snuffed the flame with a wave of his hand. He fell back on Somatic Magic for the simple effect, and the purity of his Intent and the strength of his mana were more than enough to compensate for the lack of a spellform.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t find something interesting to do. He felt like he’d been largely ignoring his magic recently, always falling back on his blade, or Aura, or the same tried and true group of spells.
He stared into the remains of the fire and felt the sun on his back and the wind in his hair. For the first time in what seemed like forever, Korrash actually thought about magic.
As he thought, he opened up his aetherium channels and began to draw in power. He felt the aspects of Nature in the surrounding energy, which was to be expected in wide, open country like this.
Intent was harder to form when working solely with Primordial Magic than with any of the other lesser magics. He could use multiple types of magic while forming the spell, with something like Somatic Magic to give the effect shape, but he wanted to push himself.
Without using modifiers to alter the area or shape, most Primordial effects were about half a meter across when they were stationary. The books he’d studied on Primordial Magic Theory at the Arcanologist’s College showed specific instances of spells with increased areas of effect. None bothered to showcase those with decreased areas of effect. Since his High Magic skill imparted a perfect understanding of every field of lesser magic, he knew just how to accomplish what would, most of the time, be a pointless reduction in size.
The math involved got tricky, since some modifying words were meant to decrease the amount of energy needed to power a spell by reducing one of its parameters, lowering the overall cost. Now, he just needed a clear Effect to meet his Intent…
He closed his eyes, picturing an orb of water floating above his tiny campfire. It coalesced from nothing, and he could visualize the faint ripples on its surface as they caught the rays of the sun, making it sparkle. It would open up from the bottom, becoming a torrent that dumped water on the campfire, extinguishing it.
Of course, that wasn’t all he had planned. The Nature energy he had infused into his mana would guide the spell’s Effect to be more like something found in nature, like a rainstorm. Droplets instead of a pressurized stream, most likely. Easy, and therefore boring.
No, he was going to push as much raw power into this spell as he could manage. He pulled up the sleeves of his robe, took a firm grip on his staff, and began the incantation.
"Lev'thas. Ro,” he said as he focused on the building energy.
“Ha. Nif.” He could feel his throat strain slightly against the words, though he was not even halfway through the spell.
“Ka'a. B'uuh…” Now there was actual resistance. He was up against the limit of the Primordial Magic’s ability to push energy into a spell’s potency. In fact, if he actually tried to release the spell as it was, the cost would be too high for even his massive mana reserves. He would likely implode as the energy vacuum sucked out his life.
“Vik. Wilf!" He shouted the last two words louder and faster than he’d intended, as their presence in the mystical syntax lessened the strain on the spellform significantly. He’d have to remember to put them first next time (Primordial Magic Theory 10 succeeded, but became a critical success due to Tier differences).
The orb of water appeared just as he’d envisioned it, though instead of half a meter in size, it was only the size of an orange. The water of the orb was dark and cloudy, like an ocean above which a storm brewed. So far, so good.
When the orb released its stored energy, it left Korrash four hundred mana weaker just before the orb exploded down toward the earth. A stream of water struck the ashes of the fire with the force of a geyser.
The roaring water scattered the ashes and bits of burning wood almost faster than it could douse them, and the force of the downpour continued unabated. It cut into the earth beneath the fire’s remains, drilling a hole into the open ground. The pressure of the incoming liquid left nowhere for the newly-spent fluid to go, so it was pushed outward, creating a pit two meters wide in only a second.
Muddy water threatened to soil Korrash’s boots as the geyser’s fury raged. He gestured sharply, raising a translucent pane of mana that parted the impromptu river, allowing him to remain unsullied. Cleanliness just felt right. Leave it to those inferior, uncultured humans to wallow in the muck.
In another second, the spell collapsed at last. What once had been a flat stretch of ground covered in gently waving grass was now a small pond ten meters across.
Korrash laughed to himself at the destruction he’d caused. He couldn’t decide if he was thankful or disappointed that he hadn’t included the word Legeth in his spell; the word that would have increased the duration of the spell from just a few seconds up to half a minute.
He was smiling as he broke into a run, leaving the watery devastation behind him and jogging on for another few minutes before the high he felt began to fade.
He thought about all the capabilities that he’d gained since he became an Adventurer. It was hard to believe he was just a simple village boy just a few weeks ago (though part of Korrash wondered if he was forgetting something, and exactly how long it had been).
There was so much he hadn’t even had a chance to experiment with. Take his Ancient Master abilities, for instance. Sure, he used the Manabolt occasionally, but that was really about it. He roused from his thoughts to discover that he stood at the top of a hill. The road sloped down the hill into a wide valley, then back up the other side kilometers away. Perhaps, ages ago, a river had run through here. The thought of walking all that way bored him.
Suddenly, an idea occurred to him that would solve both his boredom and his snail’s-pace woes in an instant. With a grin, he called the Ancient Master ability to the front of his mind.
Mana Metamorphosis (100 percent of current mana, 1/day, mental trigger)
Converts all surrounding energy in a (Tier*Talent) meter radius as well as the caster’s physical form into mana for up to 60 seconds. During this time, damage to Health is applied to Mana, only abilities or effects which use mana will function within the ability’s area, mana pool is doubled, and mana regeneration is halted. When the effect expires, caster returns to physical form with a percentage of mana based on their Tier remaining.
This was just what he needed! A good experimental run with an ability he’d never used before. It was better to test in situations like this than in live combat, since the power might have side effects he hadn’t considered. Suppressing an excited squeal, he gave the ability a mental “nod” to activate it.
A shudder ran through him, and every nerve in his body caught fire at once, then turned menthol-cold. The world around him shouted as a pocket of aetherium ignited in colorless flame, burning itself in a mystical fusion reaction that demanded it be more.
Korrash pulsed with silvery power as veins of mana crashed into him, became him, and then arced out into the surrounding mana that was also him. He had no arms, no legs, no eyes, and yet he was so much better for it. He was might, and life, and power overwhelming.
He took off like a shot, moving faster than air, faster than sound. Within seconds, he stood on the hill that had seemed so far away just moments ago. This! This was true strength!
He took off once more, devouring the road as the seconds ticked by, the aether around him igniting and turning into mana as he went. He paid no heed to it as it sank down toward the earth, the plants absorbing the thick energy and growing stronger.
He had traveled untold kilometers before he felt the power begin to wane. He knew he had only ten more seconds to revel in this newfound power. Being flesh was for suckers; for the discerning gentleman, the obvious choice was becoming the pure energy of creation!
It was this thought which reminded him of the other benefit of this ability. His mana pool was doubled while under Mana Metamorphosis, and it occurred to him that he could cast far more powerful spells that would ordinarily be too complex even for him.
The Intent and Effect sprang to his mind effortlessly. In this form, there were no chemical reactions tied to thought. He was truly unmatched.
Twin pillars of mana ejected from his body, driving themselves deep into the earth. His form shimmered from silver to brown to gold as he gathered the aspects of earth that he found there.
In this state, he needed no primitive mouth to speak the simple language of Primordial. He was beyond such concerns. As his spell formed in his mind, glyphs representing the ancient words twisted and glimmered within him. As each one formed, a deep voice that was and was not Korrash’s own boomed as loud as thunder over the plain.
"Golmos.” The energy of the deep earth. With his Intent, it meant precious metals and gemstones of all kinds. The first word of the spell shaped its elemental identity.
“Vitalis.” He dared not attempt a second elemental connection in this spellform, as the cost would balloon out of control. Instead, he called out the first of three additional Subjects that would serve to shape and give meaning to the forces of earth that he had already invoked. The symbol for Life Force wove itself into being as he spoke, showing the formless earth How It Should Be.
“Rideos.” This was the word of Summoning that he had used to call forth the shadow in Caer Realta. Joined as it was to Life Force, the word spun new life into being from nothing.
“Complu.” The Living Earth Obeys.
“Min.” Korrash silently cursed this addition, even as the structure of the glyph bled away the strain that was forming within his being at the pure complexity of the spell. This word would reduce the damage of the spell’s Effect, which in this case would hopefully mean almost to nothing since there were no Potency Increases built into the spell.
“Legeth.” The first of five joined words, this word served only to build the foundation for the next, a pyramid of power that would dictate how long this spell would last once it was complete.
“Na.” The second step in the pyramid. The spell would last for hours, now.
“Mayk.” Days.
“Wor.” Months. The duration of Mana Metamorphosis was running out! If he tried to cast this spell with his regular mana pool, the Overchannel cost would kill him if he reverted to his inferior form! He was thankful he had no need to form the sounds of each word with his mouth-bones and tasting-tentacle. He never wanted to return to being a creature of flesh!
“Halda!" The last word of the spell was not just thunder, it was lightning and the roar of a tornado. This word in the Primordial language had not been spoken in the current age; of that, he was certain. It was the capstone of his spell, the thing that made it what it was and allowed it to be complete within itself. Though it was, on its own, simply a way of communicating a great span of time, when it was used within a spellform as the culminating word, it meant permanence (Primordial Vocabulary 10 success. Primordial Magic Theory 10 failed, but became a critical success due to Tier differences).
The mana that sustained him was all but gone, and he felt the flesh of his body weave itself back into existence around him. His heart fell. He was bound once more to the bones and hormones, teeth and skin and sickening organs of terrestrial being. He despised himself.
He pushed himself to a sitting position, though he was unsure how he had ended up on the ground. His mana pool was all but empty, a paltry thirty-two points of mana available for his use. How could he have been so foolish as to use an ability like that when…
His self-loathing ground to a halt as something glittered in the dust of the road before him. He stared at it, his eyes glowing green.
It had two legs and two arms and even a head, but this was no humanoid. It was built from bricks of gold and mortared together with copper. It had no toes, just rectangular blocks where its feet should be. Its stubby fingers numbered just six between both hands. Its cylindrical head bore only the suggestion of a face, with indents where its eyes and nose should be. Floating around its head like a halo of silver were the glyphs of the spell he had cast to bring this creature, a living statue made from gold, to life.
A golem. He’d made a golem! An eight-centimeter-tall golem, sure, but that still counted as a golem, as far as he was concerned!
“I’ll call you Aurumvorax,” Korrash whispered.
“Na?” His pet’s voice was high-pitched and tinny, and it did not seem to speak a language.
