I learned a Rune. After all this time, I had almost forgotten about Rune Magic. Hells, I forgot I most likely had another rune in my pocket, the fire stone. The thought of it popped into the sense of objects that I had in my inventory. There it sat, its rune even brighter for me to see. I could feel the magic of the rune. I could see its shape both on the stone and in my head. It felt… incomplete.

  I pulled the stone out and looked at it closer. The rune was carved into the surface of the stone, but that wasn't the end of it. It looked like a black paint had been applied to the inside. I couldn’t tell if that was part of the effect or just to make the lines stand out. I started to peer deeper into it. This time, the magic wasn’t like a shell protecting the stone. I focused on the now house-sized rune floating in front of me. I could feel its purpose calling me. The imperfections galled me. My mind knew the rune; it could trace its pattern throughout the stone. A part of me hated the poor craftsmanship. It pushed through the errors and irregularities. Bits of stone and sealant were broken off, destroyed, and remade in a smooth transition in the lines of the rune. I felt the knowledge of both rush into memory. I didn’t care. I felt Ink angerly trill until I let samples of both fall into waiting tendrils. I felt no emotion except disgust. I would make this right. The rune drew mana in like a vacuum. It pulled it from the air in the room and from the very dungeon itself. It tried to draw it from me, but my mind resisted it. I felt a paper-thin void form between my mana and the stone, created by instinct, the epitome of the Way of the Void. The void might have been the Grand Canyon for as much as the stone could pull across it. I felt the mana crystallize in the stone. The very rock from which the stone was hewn changed. I don’t know if it was from the excess mana or the rune’s perfection. It went from a rough, plain gray to a milky, translucent blue—a subtle light gleamed from within, casting a stark relief against the black sealant. I could feel the mana circulating. It formed a loop within the rune itself. It rushed and circulated to a point, then doubled back on itself until it could hit the same point from the other side, like a dam in a lazy river. It galled at me. I could see the perfection that would be the completed loop. The dam resisted my attempts at destruction like it wasn’t really there. I felt it then, this was not a dam to be ripped out. This was a gap to be bridged. It wasn’t a gap to be filled by stone and paint but pure mana. So pure mana is what I gave it. That turned out to be a bad idea.

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  The current shifted as soon as I bridged the gap. The lazy river turned into a rushing torrent. I watched as the stone drained of mana, all of it rushing into the flow. The stone, now a dull milky white, started to vibrate in my hand, the rune fully aglow. I remembered what this was. It was an incendiary greande. One, I had just enhanced with an aspect-powered skill.

  Ink felt my concern and tried to cover me in leather as I tossed the now violently shaking and glowing stone into the corner of the room. I wanted to look away, but in my heart, I knew I needed to see it. It hit the ground well outside my aura’s range, so I had to use my eyes.

  The flash was intense, the heat worse. I just caught a glimpse of the fully formed rune in all three dimensions before I had to shut my eyes and look away. The room reached a boil in an instant. I heard Ink’s trill of alarm as my skin singed and the world became fire.

  Third-degree burns hurt. I literally fell on my back. It was the only part of me not fucking crispy and whatever pain came from falling was going to be far less than any attemot to lay down. I could feel Ink’s pain and worry; he had lost a majority of his mass. The pain was intense, but in the pain, I learned a secret. I focused through the pain. I pulled my thoughts away from it. I could feel Ink coming with me, but the farther I got from the pain, the less I could feel him. He was there, but he was more like a tattoo that I could see out of the corner of my vision than a living being. I felt all my senses retract back into myself, my aura shrinking to zero. I could not see or hear. I was not afraid, though. I could feel this retraction as a forceable pull like a muscle I was flexing. I knew if I let go, it would all come back. Part of me felt I deserved it. To learn from my mistake. It occurred to me that the poor quality of the rune was not a bug but a feature. It was a way to keep it small and contained. My first real act as a wizard, and I’d made the wizard’s first mistake: I fireball-ed a room with me in it.

  It took days for the room of recovery to heal and regrow my skin. My vitality stayed at an alarming low until it was done. I had come an inch from death. I didn’t like it. Speaking of coming and Death. As I awoke, I noticed the familiar gray room had sustained some damage. Before I could inspect it, the room began to fill with a familiar gray haze. Death was coming.