“I know.”
“If you clip the-“
A single glare silenced her, but the mere act of doing so was enough to throw Alarion off entirely. The brush in his hand—long hovering over the final passage of his work—withdrew entirely as he released a heavy breath and hung his head. Valentina’s maze was no easier the second time around.
At least last time, he could hit the audience.
“Sorry,” the girl said.
Her posture undercut the sincerity of the apology; her head craned far to one side, not looking at him, but past him to the half-finished work on the recently installed workbench. The [Item Mage] was nothing without her priorities.
“It’s looking good,” she continued, no doubt a compliment would smooth over her transgressions. “The etchings are working, and the pigment is settling well. Honestly, I have no idea how you two thought you were going to do this without me.”
“W-We would have been fine,” Bergman countered.
“Mhmm.”
Alarion tuned out from the resultant bickering, drew a breath, and focused back in on the work.
She was right, of course. No matter what Bergman believed, it was clear to Alarion that they had gotten in way over their heads. Even if they’d been able to clear out the remainder of the old inscription without her help, and he wasn’t sure if they would have managed it, she’d brought too many extra tools to the table for her contribution to be ignored. Vices, magnifying, and suction tools were the least of her gifts in comparison to the state-of-the-art [Zaiyn Universal Toolkit] she had happily provided.
Rather, she had let him rent.
Or… that she had let Bergman rent on his behalf.
He really needed more money.
His dubious financial situation aside, Witch had been entirely correct about his old inscription tools. They were garbage by comparison. His replacement tools abandoned the awkward, mechanical stencils for an enchanted equivalent that clung and conformed to whatever surface it was placed upon. Replacing his Core, Affinity, and Communion sigils was as easy as aligning the stencil and coloring between the lines, with zero risk of failure.
Sadly, the same was not true for the connections. There were supposedly programmable equivalents that could have done the job, but none that Annie owned—those he would have to freehand, which was where the rest of her kit came in handy.
Given that they were attempting to lay down a pattern that should never need to be revised, Bergman had suggested early on that they etch it directly into the mace. It was a good idea, stifled by practical reality.
Whatever metal the mace was made of proved impervious to every tool Bergman had been able to locate in Ilvan-Trai. Unenchanted steel broke almost immediately, and even enchanted steel and iron tools could do little more than scuff the dull grey metal.
Not so with the universal toolkit. The hard-cased dimensional storage item had yielded fourteen enchanted chisels of ever-increasing size, along with a befuddling magic-operated device that Alarion had declined. Some things were better done with one’s hands, both for precision and sympathy.
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And definitely not because the whine of the ‘drill’ was deeply unnerving to him.
Even Annie’s tools struggled with the mace, prompting further unanswered questions about its origin that left her more intrigued than annoyed. But struggle or not, they did the job, digging shallow and precise furrows into the metal. Yet even with every advantage, the inscription process was nerve-racking.
His new iteration of the weapon had many more, considerably thinner lines, all packed closer together. His mistakes on the original had been fixed by expanding a sigil and a line, but his margin for error was now razor thin. It was no longer enough to avoid touching one line to another; any deviation from the pattern would be a problem. If two connections got too close to one another, the mana flow might jump from one to the other instead of following its predetermined paths. With such a delicate system, any points of failure would quickly cascade, rendering it vastly worse than the original, if not entirely inert.
That was what happened the last three times.
“Okay. I think I have it,” Alarion breathed. He’d left the easiest part of the pattern for last, the so-called Corridor that had marked the final challenge of the original puzzle. There, it had been an ever-narrowing passage that he had repeatedly failed to sneak through. Here it was the straightest, simplest line of the entire affair, difficult only insofar as he had to be careful to spread the liquid metal evenly over such a wide area.
“D-Do you think-“
“Yeah,” said Alarion. “It feels right this time.”
“Fourth time is the charm,” Annie said, her words more encouraging than her expression suggested. “But then, you felt right about it the third time.”
Alarion eyed her scathingly, a hundred bitter replies on the tip of his tongue. She arched an eyebrow in challenge, and Alarion demurred, reaching for Bergman. Success was its own rebuttal.
Channeling energy into the item was something Alarion could do himself—with some difficulty—but part of him was convinced that his overeagerness, not an unsteady hand, was what ruined his second attempt. Better to have someone else moderate than burn out the core rune through stubbornness.
A slow, steady pulse of energy flowed through their overlapping hands as the runes burned in once again. The liquid metal used in the Steelborn’s inscription kit was silver, rather than gold, but the runes came out the same crimson as before. One by one, they darkened, the mana circling from core to affinity to communion, the silver shimmering with internal light as it reacted to the mana within.
And then, it was done—No fanfare or explosion, no pulse of arcane pressure or any other indication of success or failure.
At least, none that were visible.
Unbound Student of Isha [Ancient]
Description: Guided by one of the greatest System scholars to have ever lived, Valentina Lyons, also known as the Incarnation Isha, you have overcome infirmity to become a talented, if straightforward, mage. This skill reflects the core of your spellcasting ability, allowing for storage, preparation, and modification of known spell formulas, and is narrowly tailored toward spells that utilize only unbound fields.
Requirements: Favor of Lal Viren (Minor). Tutelage by Valentina Lyons. Perfected spellcasting implement. INT 500. WIL 500.
Type: Passive/Active
Effects: The user of this skill is able to store the formula of a number of spells (Rank x 10) within a specially designated and prepared implement. Once per day, the user of this skill is able to prepare for use a number of spells (Rank x 5) that they will be able to cast at will through their designated implement. Spells stored within the implement may be modified along the tri-axis of Power/Speed/Cost.
Spells known may be replaced. Spells gained from classes may or may not count against the known/prepared limits, depending on the class in question. Prepared spells are unavailable if the user is too far away from their implement (currently 20 feet/level of this skill).
Moderately increase the power of all aura and nova-type spells.
Growths: INT +4. PER +4. WIL +4.
“It worked?” Annie asked, even if it was not much of a question. She could have read the smile on his face or the blank look in his eyes to know the System had given it good news.
“It did,” he confirmed. “Thank you.”
“Well… I will start cleaning up then,” she gestured to the mace still clamped in place. “Do you mind moving it? It is a bit heavy for me.”
“She,” Alarion corrected, already moving to claim his prize. The mace felt lighter now, and it brimmed with power and newfound sympathetic ties as he turned it over in one hand and declared, “Isha. Her name is Isha.”
stared at the heavy oak door of Syrus’s study, steeling herself as she stared at the intricate carvings that adorned its surface."
abysmal horror! And somehow I didn't notice it until this week!
just won't end. The Ilvan-Trai arc is ~12 chapters in my note, it ended up as nearly twenty. The finale was slated for ~10-15 and ended up stretching again. My estimate was that this would be the 'short' book of the series, clocking in at 165,000-175,000, and instead it is only about ~3,000 words shorter at almost exactly 200,000.
terrified of what is going to happen with book 3. I'm already on the fence over whether or not I should just bite the bullet and make it two books, but I really don't want to. For those curious, my original subtitles for the five books I envisioned were (spoiler alert):
absolute for sure 100% my agent will stab me in the neck if I don't finish today read through today and then posting the final draft. Then tomorrow it is book three time baybeeeeeeee.