“Wait, why isn’t Marie able to do this?” I asked, voicing the thought that had just occurred to me. We were in Mandel’s workshop, and he was showing me how to rig a double-spellstoring enchantment. “Aren’t Dungeons able to craft far better-enchanted items than Enchanters? And come to think of it, why are you selling your enchantments, rather than Dungeon-made items?”

Mandel snorted. “Dungeon-made items mean a dungeon - and there are ways of telling from what dungeon they came from. We didn’t want to attract delvers when it was just the three of us…”

“…and the Baron has the same concern.” I finished for him.

“Right. As for your first question, dungeons can’t make anything that’s fake.”

“Um… what do you mean?”

“Everything they make is labelled with what it is. Unlike your illusions - they can’t create items that aren’t clearly labelled with what they are.”

“So if Marie made a fake core, [Identify] would label it with ‘Fake Core’, made by Marie.”

“Exactly. I imagine it’s one of the overriding rules put in place when the Gods were finished hashing out the rules for Dungeons.”

I returned my attention to the spell structure. I had sent Gifford back home with a letter and an agreement to pick me up again in three days. That meant I was probably going to miss our next dungeon expedition, but the runes and the education should be worth it.

The fake core and its unadium cage had separate [Identify] tags, so they needed to be separate spells. The cage had to be fake as well, or it would choke off mana to the [Enchantment]. I wasn’t sure if Phantasmal unadium would also block mana - I was avoiding the question by making something that looked like unadium and labelling it as such.

[Phantasmal Object] needed 15 mana to cast, and we were casting two of them. Fortunately, the upkeep was low, so we would be able to rely on ambient mana to keep the spell up. To cast the spells, we were using the largest mana stone I’d worked with yet, a thirty-mana stone almost half a centimetre in diameter. Mandel didn’t have a shortage.

“There, it’s done,” I said. Without further ceremony, I activated the enchantment and tossed the small disk into the air. The Phantasm formed around it, and I caught the result. With the disk in the Phantasm, you couldn’t see it or deactivate it without destroying the object.

“Toraio’s secrets, a solid illusion?” Mandel exclaimed. “But those are…” he trailed off and gave me a speculative look. “… that will be much better for our purpose, yes. Thank you.”

Looks like I gave something away. He probably thinks I’m a Level Seven?

Mandel left to install the fake, while I stayed in his quarters and got to work on his spell-books. Rune-books. Whatever. I had wanted to [Memorise] all the new runes and then [Research] them from memory later - it would be slower, but I could do most of it at home instead of here. I ran into a problem though. It appeared that when it came to learning spells [Memorise] had limits.

I was up to my seventh rune - [Control Object] - but when I tried to add it to my memory, it just didn’t… take. Confused, I tried a few others, but my memory seemed to be full. I hadn’t encountered any limits with regular memories, but perhaps spells were different? I had a limit of six… was that twice my skill level, or… checking my logs, my Effect totals for [Memorise] were in the sixties. It could be that I needed ten points of Effect for each spell… or it could be my limit was higher, but all the runes I’d previously [Memorised] counted.

The only way to tell was to [Research] one of the runes and see if I could [Memorise] another. That was going to take some time though.

I probably won’t finish before Mandel comes back… but he’ll be expecting me to be studying runes anyway…

I sighed in irritation and got started.

A few hours later the door to the room opened. I had expected to see Mandel, but instead, a Goblin was standing there. I tensed, but it wasn’t carrying a weapon - it was carrying a tray of food. I watched it as it made its way around the other couch and placed it gently on the table. The whole time, I could see it glaring at me with hostility, but it didn’t so much as step out of place. Once it had placed the tray, it turned around and walked out of the room.

That was creepy, I thought. Are all my meals going to be served with a side of hatred?

The meal itself was perfectly fine. Bread, meat, cheese and greens. Had it been made directly by the Dungeon, or had it been prepared by that angry Goblin? I put the question aside and started eating while resuming my [Research].

Eventually, I proved one theory right: I could hold up to six runes in my memory, and [Researching] a rune cleared it out of storage. I needed to think about what runes to learn, and how to learn them.

There were more runes here than I could learn in the three days that I’d allowed myself. [Researching] a rune directly was faster than doing it from memory, but I’d still run out of time. On the other hand, if I used [Memorise] I’d be training both skills at once.

I decided to stick with the [Memorise] route. I could come back again after this. Either way though, I should look at prioritising which runes I got.

I was halfway through making a list when Mandel finally came back. He looked both pleased and apprehensive - which was a level of nuance I don’t think I’d have been able to pick up on back home.

“Did everything go well?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said pensively. “There’s some improvement, but she hasn’t come back to normal. It may take some time.”

I made a sympathetic noise and returned to my studies.

Two days later, and I was having another go at [Theurgy]. [Theurgy], Mandel had explained, was the original magic skill. Controlling mana directly to achieve effects, it could do anything that the nine magic skills could do - and a few other things they couldn’t. I had a few questions, one of which I couldn’t ask.

One, why was it called [Theurgy] and not Mana Control? I couldn’t ask this question, because it wasn’t called Theurgy, not really. That was just what the System had chosen to translate it as. If I focused, I could hear the mishmash of syllables that they actually spoke. ‘Mana Control’ and ‘Theurgy’ sounded pretty similar to my ear, but the System could tell the difference.

I guessed that Theurgy was an old fashioned word for magic in my language and so that’s what the System decided to use.

The next question was why didn’t people use [Theurgy] and be masters of all the types of magic. The answer was that [Theurgy] was hard.

When you cast a spell, you had to get an effect total over the level of the spell. Mandel had mentioned this as part of his explanation and I managed to smile and nod like I knew that. I had actually missed it because it was so freaking easy to do.

When I cast my first spell during my fifteen-minute career as an [Illusionist] I’d had a +2 skill bonus and a [Charisma] of seven. Despite only having a skill level of one, I’d had a base effect total of twenty-one. Casting a Level 15 spell was a breeze back then, and my effect total had gone to twenty-eight the moment I upgraded to [Phantasmal Artificer]. Once I hit Level 2, there was no chance of me failing any spell that was available.

Doing the same spells with [Theurgy] would be ten times harder, according to Mandel. I’d need an effect level of fifty just to do a level five spell.

The main reason people used [Theurgy] today - and for ‘today’ read for about the last thousand years - was to do things that spells couldn’t. Like, move mana around. On a large scale, with the aid of those big stones I’d seen, and on a small scale, to get around runic fields.

Neither of those applications was approved of by governments. Well, they approved of it when they did it. That’s why there was a [Theurgy] guild. It predated the Kingdom - predated the Empire before it, apparently, but both governments had made sure that its members worked for them.

Fortunately, anyone with [Sense Mana] could manage to learn [Theurgy]. Unlike the other Magic skills, it could be unlocked by a successful skill roll.

“Just do what you would do for a spell, without using the skill.” Mandel had said, breezily.

It wasn’t that easy. The simplest spell I knew was level five, and my base effect total was a big fat zero. Instead, I needed to imagine a level one spell, figure out what that would look like and then make it a reality by moving mana without a [Skill].

I’d decided on mimicking [Water Magic]. It seemed simpler, and since I wouldn’t be using the skill, it didn’t matter that my [Water Magic] was lower than my [Illusion Magic]. I had decided to call the spell I was working on the ‘Tea-stirring’ spell because that was all it would be good for. A finger of mana that could shove just the tiniest amount of water - or tea - around a mug.

Mandel watched with interest as I used [Water Ball] to lift a small amount of water out of the bowl I was using as my test arena. We’d been living in each other’s pockets for the last two days as he kept me hidden from his jailers, and I was getting a little sick of the sight of him. Fortunately, Marie had been able to carve out additional rooms for me so I didn’t have to sleep on his couch.

What I wanted was just a fraction of this ball. I studied the mana construct closely, trying to figure out what could go without destabilising the whole thing. The type of mana would be important too, I knew. It needed to interact with water and nothing else.

I let the spell go and focused on a new one. It was easy enough to not use a [Skill] - the System seemed to know when I wanted it and when I didn’t. It was really hard to move the mana without one though. Every other time I’d done it, I’d let the [Skill] do the heavy lifting - all the lifting really. But I’d been there when I’d done it, and I could sort of understand the mental muscles I needed to flex.

Strands of mana coalesced in front of me. Something like a spoon formed… and then dissipated. I felt the magic drain out of me, but it was a tiny loss. Only a level one spell after all. I tried again - and failed.

Persistence was the key - if luck failed. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, so I would just have to try again. And again.

On the sixth try, it took, and the spoon dipped into the water and started stirring it.

[Theurgy] Skill unlocked.

[Theurgy] Level 1 purchased.

For gaining a skill level you have been awarded 1 XP.

“Congratulations,” Mandel said. “You’re now a rogue theurgist”

“Catchy as that sounds,” I said, “I don’t think I’ll be switching professions any time soon.”