379 days until the Arkon Shield falls

Gorkin, the mountain hamlet whose whereabouts you reported will trouble you no more. We have taken care of it. —Shaman Jhaven.

“This is you,” Jeremy said.

The two of us were standing outside the closed entrance of a log cabin. The one I’d be allocated was on the eastern end of the village, in the middle of a long row of similar cabins.

I studied the wooden buildings on either side of my own. They all looked indistinguishable from each other. “How can you tell?”

“They’re numbered,” the brown-haired smith said, gesturing downwards.

Following his gaze, I saw that indeed they were. A large ‘43’ had been carved into the cabin’s wooden threshold. Huh. “What about street signs? Did someone forget about them?” I quipped.

“They’re on the list,” Jeremy replied equably. “There just hasn’t been an urgent cry for them yet.

I stared at him. “The list?”

Jeremy grinned at me. “Things have changed a bit since you left, Jamie. Melissa has divided all crafting jobs into two lists: ‘village essentials’ and ‘commissioned works.’ Nothing gets made that isn’t near the top of either of those lists.” He gave me a wry look. “But since you’re, well, you, naturally your own commission has jumped to the head of the list.”

I shook my head in slight disbelief at how well organized the village had become in my absence. Things had changed more than ‘a bit.’

Saying farewell to Jeremy, I entered my new home.

✽✽✽

The moment I stepped inside the cabin, a Trials message unfurled in my mind.

You’ve claimed ownership of a house in Sierra and have been designated as a visiting ally by the faction leader. While within the bounds of the village, you must comply with all settlement regulations.

I dismissed the alert and studied the cabin’s interior. It was a simple one-bedroom building and was sparsely furnished with only a single bed, chair, table, and fur rug. Still, it was a far cry from the tent I’d inhabited on my first night in Overworld, and I was pretty pleased by my new abode.

The contents of my sled—minus the zelium—were stacked in one corner of the cabin near its only window. Leaving the pile be for the moment, I sank down onto the rug and removed the ten elemental fragments I’d collected from the dungeon, arraying them in a half-circle around me—four of water, two of air, two of fire, and two of earth. Above each of the fragments, I laid one of Anton’s crafted weapons.

Bending my gaze downwards, I considered the fragments anew. Each of them still gave off a faint magical sheen. Picking one at random, I cast analyze.

The target is an elemental fragment of earth. Current state: dormant. The special properties of this item are: unknown. Your lore skill is insufficient.

“Hmpf,” I snorted. My lore was still not high enough to gain more information on the crystals, but I didn’t let that dissuade me. I had enough to go on to get started. Rubbing my chin, I considered how to perform the task before me.

My only source of reference when it came to enchanting was Regna and his warhammer. On multiple occasions, I’d witnessed the dwarf imbue his weapon with lightning and ice. Based on my observations, I knew the process was similar to spellcasting.

To cast a spell, two things were needed: a spellform and a spell source, and from what Regna had said, I already knew the source of his weapon’s enchantments was spirit. Technically that made enchanting sorcery, not magic, but the principles underlying both were the same.

Regna had also told me that before an enchantment could be created from an elemental crystal, it first needed to be attuned. Having already attuned my Focus, I had some inkling of how to do that, but I feared attuning the fragments would not be as simple a matter. Instead of aligning spirit to mana as I had done with my staff, this time I would have to forge a conduit between a fragment and its wielder, a spirit-to-spirit attunement.

Then there were the weapons themselves to consider. They were made of metal. Dead, inert metal without spirit of their own. Only living things could channel spells. I knew this for a certainty; the Trials itself had told me so. All this left me in a bit of a quandary.

Assuming I succeeded in the first part and managed to attune the crystals and provide them a power source of spirit, how did I get the weapons to channel a spell? That it was possible was made self-evident by Regna’s warhammer. I only had to figure out how.

I grimaced. You didn’t think it was going to be easy, did you? I hadn’t. But that didn’t stop me from hoping it would be. Nothing for it, but to start then.

Opening my magesight, I studied the items before me. The ten crystals sparkled. Each was throbbing with life and densely packed with filaments of spirit. The weapons, as expected, were dull and lifeless, empty voids lacking any threads of spirit or magic.

Let’s begin with the more familiar.

I picked up one of the fragments of fire and cast basic attunement. Drawing on my mana, I slipped delicate threads of magic into the crystal, careful not to flood or overwhelm the spirit within. I couldn’t afford to let the fragments die as the saplings had. Ever so gently, I attempted to align the spirit within the crystal with my own magic.

Attunement failed. This elemental crystal is too small to be a Focus.

Not unexpectedly, I failed, but interestingly enough, not for the reason I’d predicted.

So, an elemental crystal can also be made into a Focus, I mused. I had not expected that. I wondered what that would mean for the spells cast through it. Unlike my wooden staff, the fragments were not neutral vessels. They each had a distinct affinity for a particular element. Did it mean that an elemental Focus would enhance magic of one type to the detriment of others? Probably.

I shrugged. It was an intriguing idea but not one for immediate exploration. It was time for the true test: slipping strands of my own spirit into the crystal.

I wasn’t sure how the spirit within would react to such a trespass, but I anticipated some degree of resistance. Returning my attention to the fire fragment in my hand, I studied the lattice of spirit woven into its structure and searched for a weak spot. As I peered into the fragment’s spirit design, something tugged at my mind... a hint of the familiar.

Frowning, I turned the strangely-warm object over in my hands, studying it intently from all angles. Something about the crystal’s design had caught my interest, but what? Had I seen another similar structure?

Recognition hovered at the edge of my mind, but the harder I tried to force understanding, the more it eluded me. Half of me wanted to ignore the tantalizing familiarity of the crystal’s spirit and proceed with my test, but I was loath to do so. There was something important I was missing. I just knew it.

What is it?

Time slipped by and still the answer didn’t come to me. I ground my teeth in frustration. Staring into the fragment wasn’t working. Expelling a deep breath, I closed my eyes and magesight too.

Let’s try this another way, then.

What did I know about the crystal? The Trials had described it as a ‘heart.’ One that had somehow given birth to a fire elemental. What else? According to Regna, it could be used to add a fire enchantment to a weapon.

Fire.

Finally, it clicked.

Fire. That was what I recognized in the crystal. The lines of spirit threading through the fragment bore a striking resemblance to the base spellform used in a fire spell!

Snapping open my magesight, I inspected the other crystals. Now that I knew what I was looking at, I immediately recognized the basic spell construct of water, earth, and air magic spells in the other elemental fragments.

“Remarkable,” I breathed, studying the densely packed spirit weaves. In a very real sense, each fragment’s spirit was a spell or at least a part of one.

I paused, struck by the appropriateness of the thought. Part of a spellform, I mused. That sounded correct. My gaze flitted between the fragments and the weapons, intuitively connecting the dots.

Enchanting was a form of sorcery.

Sorcery used spirit.

The spirits in the fragments already contained the kernel of a spell.

Ergo, I need to create a spellform from spirit!

The realization left me thunderstruck. The spellforms I used as a mage were created and empowered by mana—and lifeblood too in the case of dragon magic—but I was now sure that to enchant the weapons I needed to expand the fragments’ spirits into fully-fledged spells.

The very idea left me anxious. I knew that spirit was not malleable as mana. When I had attuned my staff, I’d had to gently coax the staff’s spirit to align with my mana, and in the end, it had done so of its own will.

What I needed to do now sounded more… complex. I understood then that Regna’s explanation had not been wholly correct, and the task before me was even harder than what I’d initially assumed.

How do I create a spellform from spirit?

I had no idea.

Yet.

I licked suddenly-dry lips. Setting down the fire fragment, I picked up one of the water fragments and a longsword. The only way I was going to figure this out was by doing, and if I was going to experiment, it would be with a fragment type I had the most of.

Summoning dragonfire, I cast restrained flare and carefully melted a slight indentation in the pommel. I should be doing this in Anton’s smithy, but with dragonfire at my beck, I had no need for the forges’ fires.

Before the cooled metal could harden again, I inset the water fragment. Crystal and metal fused but didn’t crack. I released a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. Good.

I inspected the crystal and sword with my magesight again. Neither appeared any different. Disappointingly, the boundary between fragment and metal was stark. One was full of life, the other empty.

The fragment’s spirit contained only the kernel of a spell, yet it still filled the crystal. To become an entire spellform, the spirit would have to grow beyond what the fragment itself could hold. I suspected the weapon was meant to be the housing for the expanded spirit, and after bonding fragment and weapon together, I’d hoped that the spirit would make the leap into the metal of its own volition.

All right, that didn’t work. Let’s see if this does.

Reaching into the fragment with a tiny thread of mana, I pried tentatively at a single filament of its spirit.

It didn’t budge.

Frowning, I wrapped more mana around the filament and tugged harder, trying to encourage it to slip outside the crystal’s rim and into the adjacent metal.

Once more, the fragment refused.

I was doing something wrong, I realized. But what? I drummed my fingers against the wooden floor. How did I get the fragment’s spirit to grow into a spellform?

How did anything grow for that matter?

With food and water—energy.

That’s it. I needed to feed the crystal energy. Drawing on my mana, I trickled a minute amount into the crystal.

Nothing happened.

I sent additional mana coursing into the fragment, ignoring the risk of flooding it.

At first, nothing happened, but then slowly but surely, my mana disappeared, consumed by the elemental spirit within. I bit down on my excitement—it was working!—and fed the crystal more mana.

The fragment grew cold. Droplets of ice formed around the pommel of the sword and tendrils of chill spread through the air.

You have awakened an elemental fragment of water.

The air grew frosty. Suppressing a shiver, I ignored the expanding circle of winter and kept my gaze fixed on the fragment.

Weaves of spirit had uncurled from the crystal. Shooting upwards and outwards, they exploded in every which direction. Water condensed in the air, and ice blocks began to form on the floor.

The elemental spirit was expanding. But not in the manner I intended. The spirit design in my magesight no longer bore even a passing resemblance to a spellform. It was growing wild, I realized. Free.

An ice elemental was taking shape.