Chapter 36: The Trial of Runes, Part I

Upon hearing Kaz’s first choice of trial, Master Ferran looked rather pleased. On the other hand Master Itzli looked rather displeased. Master Itzli was the head of the Void Gate, the department of Spatial Magic. It seemed as if each of the Morbid Academy’s masters had at least one other master that they did not like. Master Faust and Master Ci Xi were opposed to each other, while Master Itzli and Master Ferran did not seem to like each other either. Kaz didn’t know the Masters of the Bone Magic or Hex Magic departments, but he thought that they might be disagreeable to each other as well.

The Headmaster looked at Kaz dispassionately, as if the young necromancer was not worth his notice. Perhaps Kaz was indeed beneath the Headmaster’s notice, as Kaz was only an applicant and not a student. After a second, the Headmaster snapped his fingers. Behind Kaz, a teleportation rune started to glow with a soft cyan light.

“Step into the teleportation rune. You will be sent to the Trial of Runes.” Motioning with his hand, the Headmaster dismissed Kaz.

“As you say, Headmaster.” Kaz bowed, then turned around and walked into the teleportation rune. When Kaz’s steps reached the center of the teleportation rune, the rune flashed once and took Kaz away.

The Headmaster waved his hand in the air, and a huge mirror detached itself from the ceiling of the Master’s Hall. Spinning in the air before floating in front of the seated Masters, the giant mirror flashed once. After the light faded, an image appeared on the surface of the mirror. It showed Kaz as he stepped out of another teleportation rune. Meanwhile, Ahriman’s spirit floated down to ground level as he sought to sneak away. Seeing this movement, Master Faust frowned and clicked his tongue. Ahriman’s spirit shuddered in pain and stopped moving. Satisfied, Master Faust turned his attention back to the surface of the giant mirror.

Kaz stepped out of the teleportation rune, and realized that the temperature of his surroundings had increased substantially. Beads of sweat started to form on Kaz’s forehead as he looked around. He was in a medium sized square room, with a teleportation rune in the center. On the wall directly in front of Kaz was a cast iron door, while the other three walls were actually bookshelves filled with leather-bound books. Although Kaz’s first impulse was to rush to the shelves and pull the books off so that he could read them, he decided that it would be wiser to wait for further instructions. Kaz was relieved that he did not have to wait a long time.

“For each Trial that you undertake, you will have the opportunity to brush up on your knowledge of each field. You are in the Foundry as I speak, home of the Department of Runic Inscriptions. More specifically, you are in the Trial Grounds of the Foundry. The Trial Grounds are self contained, and you will be unable to exit from them unless you use an active teleportation rune or I actively pull you out.” The Headmaster’s voice boomed in the contained room. “All applicants will be given one hour of review time for the first Trial. You will be given two hours of review time for the second Trial, and so on and so forth. I suggest you do not waste this time, seeing as your education so far has been….lacking. Your hour starts now.”

Kaz bolted towards the bookshelves before the Headmaster’s voice had faded. Scanning the books on the shelves, Kaz realized that there weren’t actually that many different books. There were many duplicates, although some were in worse conditions than others.

The Masters of the Morbid Academy must have anticipated that some applicants would be frustrated by the Trials and take their anger out on the books. I wonder if these applicants were punished even if they were to pass the Morbid Gauntlet. I can imagine their fates would not be pretty if they were to abuse Academy property AND fail the Gauntlet.

Kaz gathered the best copies of the unique books within several minutes of the Headmaster informing him about the rules of the Morbid Gauntlet. Kaz sat down on the now inactivated teleportation rune and started to look at the books in front of him. Feeling nervous, Kaz’s bad habit of talking to himself out loud showed itself.

“There are a total of four unique books here. They are ‘The Basics of Rune Magic,’ ‘Common Inscription Mistakes,’ ‘The History of Runic Inscriptions,’ and ‘Applications of Novice Runes for the Stupid Mage.’ I should browse the book about applications of rune magic first since the Trial should be more application than pure theory.” Setting aside the other three books, Kaz opened ‘Applications of Novice Runes for the Stupid Mage’ and began to read.

The more Kaz read, the more he realized that his knowledge of Runic Inscriptions was not deep at all. In fact, his knowledge about how runes could be used in different ways was severely lacking when compared to the contents of this one textbook. Cold sweat appeared on Kaz’s back, soaking his shirt despite the heat of the closed room. Kaz started to read faster and faster since he had no way of determining how much more time he had until he was forced to begin the Trial of Runes.

Gods Above! I’m so thankful that I have an eidetic memory. Even if it does not help me in understanding the source material, I am able to view the contents of each book that I have ever read. I’m practically a library myself, if only a little lacking in content. That is not a problem, though, if I can live for long enough. I refuse to die without learning absolutely everything that I can!

Closing the ‘Applications of Novice Runes for the Stupid Mage,’ Kaz looked towards the remaining three books. Within seconds, Kaz made his second choice. It was the ‘Common Inscription Mistakes,’ which dealt with the most common mistakes that beginning inscriptionists would make as well as steps to avoid these same mistakes.

Reviewing how Runic Inscriptions can be used in real situations is good for my understanding. However, making stupid mistakes can cost me the Trial itself. I should review, or even learn, what some of the most common mistakes are when inscribing runes. At the very least, I can eliminate some of the bad habits that I might have picked up from having to teach myself runic inscriptions. Holy hell, if I ever get out of this alive I’m going to request that Ahriman’s spirit be given to me once I am strong enough. I’m going to make him pay for throwing me under the wagon like this!

After another period of time, Kaz put the ‘Common Inscription Mistakes’ book down. Mulling over what he had just read, Kaz realized that he could have prevented the smear mark from giving him so much trouble if only he had this textbook from the beginning.

Gods alone know how I managed to solve the problem of the smear mark with no formal training. It’s a good thing that the Book of Blood taught the method for self-contained inscriptions. Although self-contained inscriptions were harder to inscribe, they collapse with much less force than normal runes. I had no idea that I was only making self-contained inscriptions, I shudder to think how powerful the failed rune-key explosions would be if I had used normal runic inscriptions.

Shaking his head, Kaz looked at the last two books on the floor next to him. Kaz hesitated for several seconds, then picked up ‘The History of Runic Inscriptions.’ In case that the Trial of Runes actually involved theory, Kaz wanted to be prepared to answer questions about the history of runes. Even though the young necromancer was hedging his bets on the Trial of Runes being an exercise in the application of runic inscriptions, it was not wise to only cover one base instead of two.

Besides, I’m pretty sure that I can skim the book about the basics of runic inscriptions once I finish the book about their history. Mm, I’m rather excited about this book. I was training to be a historian back in Klavan. This brings back memories, of happier times…

Kaz couldn’t help but read the textbook in its entirety. Having not indulged in history for some time, Kaz’s thirst for historical knowledge was at an all time high. In the middle of reading the ‘History,’ the Headmaster’s voice boomed once more in Kaz’s ears.

“The allotted hour of review time is up. Return the texts to their shelves and enter the door.”

Kaz leapt up in surprise. He did not expect that there was so little time left. Returning the books to their respective bookshelves, Kaz wailed on the inside.

That was so STUPID. Why did I get caught up in reading that historical text? I could have just skimmed the pages since I can remember everything I see. Even though I don’t always remember things immediately, I only needed to see the pages for it to be recorded in my memory. I guess I can’t do anything about it now.

Kaz took a deep breath. Walking to the iron door, Kaz pushed it open. At first, the iron door refused to budge. Kaz frowned, then used more force to push the door open. Although the iron door would be very heavy for a normal person, Kaz’s body had been reinforced by the Chant of the Novitiate. Having reached a certain level of accomplishment in the Chant, Kaz’s physical strength had been increased to that of a veteran soldier. Once Kaz used all of his strength, the iron door slowly screeched as it cracked open.

A brightly lit room awaited Kaz. As soon as Kaz walked through the door into the larger room, the iron door slammed shut behind him. Kaz gulped as he looked around the room. There did not seem to be all that many decorations within the room. There was a large grey forge in one corner of the room. There was a silent stone golem standing still in another corner. A suit of armor was on a metal mannequin in the center of the room. Next to it was a weapons rack that contained three weapons. These three weapons were a sword, an axe, and a hammer. On closer inspection, the suit of armor on the metal mannequin contained intricate runic inscriptions on its surface.

“The Trial of Runes is a test of the strength of the applicant’s inscriptions. Runic Magic is very important to the art of Necromancy because of the reinforcement that it can provide to both physical objects as well as spells. Modifying your undead and spirit minions is just as important as modifying a spell to work underwater instead of only in air.” The Headmaster’s monotone voice droned in Kaz’s ears.

“The Trial of Runes requires the applicant to inscribe a series of runes onto the weapons that allows any of them to render the armor on the mannequin unusable. The mana forge in the corner may be activated to supply the applicant with enough mana to inscribe the runes, so to be fair to applicants of different mana capacities. You are allowed up to three chances. You will be provided with a runic golem that will strike the armor with your modified weapon. In addition to the limited amount of tries, there will also be a time constraint. You are allowed only three hours to undertake the three tries. A second longer than the three hours will be counted as a failure. You may begin.”

The moment the Headmaster’s voice faded, the silent stone golem in the corner opposite the mana forge started to move. Runes lit up all over the golem’s body, and it shuffled over to the armor mannequin until the golem was directly in front of the mannequin. Once there, the runic golem stood still and silent as it waited for Kaz’s orders.

Kaz walked over to the weapons rack. Picking up each of the three weapons available to him, Kaz studied all three weapons with his mana sense as well as with conventional means. After several minutes, Kaz put the weapons back onto the rack. Kaz took several steps back as he thought about the weapons.

These weapons are simple iron weapons. There does not seem to be any significant difference between these weapons and standard iron weapons given to the Klavan military. The only difference that I can tell is that the style of these three weapons is archaic, but that is only to be expected from such an ancient academy. I should inspect the armor next to see that I need to break.

Kaz shook his head. The weapons provided to him were mundane. The Trial of Runes could be said to be a test of pure inscription application. There were no additional advantages that the applicants could take. Weapons were provided, the runic golem was the same for all applicants, and the armor should be the same. The only thing that differed between the applicants was their mastery of Runic Magic and their creativity.

Kaz approached the armor mannequin. Walking around the mannequin in circles, Kaz used his mana sense to probe each and every centimeter of the armor. The armor on the mannequin was just a cuirass. Although there was only one piece of armor, Kaz felt that this lone piece of armor must be heavily reinforced.

Hmm. That’s surprising. The cuirass itself is made up of the same iron as the weapons. The physical properties of the iron used to make the cuirass and the iron used to make the weapons is exactly the same. However, the cuirass does have a intricate network of runic inscriptions carved onto it.

Kaz ran his fingers over the glowing runes on the armor as he studied the runic inscriptions. As time passed, Kaz’s eyes grew brighter and brighter with excitement. These inscriptions were like nothing that he had seen before!

These runic inscriptions are insane! All of the ones that I have seen before used a single main rune and several supporting runes. Some of them did not even have supporting runes. This cuirass has a three main runes, and nine supporting runes. Gods Above and Devils Below, how the hell am I going to break these runic inscriptions?

The back of Kaz’s shirt was now covered in cold sweat. The network of runic inscriptions on the iron cuirass was the most complicated series of runic inscriptions that Kaz had ever seen. Never in all the time that he spent studying magic, short as it may be, did Kaz think that more than one main rune could be used in an network of runes. Kaz paced for several minutes before he was able to calm down. The young necromancer took several deep breaths, then started to study the inscribed armor in earnest.

One Protect, one Deflect, and one Absorb main rune. Each of these main runes has three supporting runes. All nine supporting runes are exactly the same, a supporting rune of Power. This tells me that linking three main runes requires an astronomical amount of mana. I can’t find an embedded mana crystal as a power source, so the runic network on the cuirass must be getting all of the mana it needs by using the Power supporting runes to absorb ambient mana from the surroundings.

Kaz walked away from the cuirass for now. Turning, Kaz faced the runic golem that was standing at attention. Kaz’s mana sense enveloped the runic golem as he inspected every possible bit of the golem. The golem only had a single main rune of Strength, with a single Power supporting rune to supply enough energy for it to move.

There are only two runes inscribed onto this runic golem. Looking at it like this, it’s not much of a guardian. This runic golem must only be used for the Trial of Runes. There is no evidence of independance, and commands must be given to it for any action that the golem undertakes. However, there does seem to be a surprising amount of empty space on this stone golem.

Kaz finished inspecting the stone golem. Kaz looked around the room with a bit of a frustrated expression. Again, there was no device or way for Kaz to tell how much time he had left. The Headmaster stated that Kaz had up to three hours or tries, whichever came first. Kaz sighed as he walked over to the mana forge.

The mana forge in the corner of the room was slightly bigger than a normal Klavan forge. Kaz had snuck around the Blood Citadel many times in the past in order to watch the blacksmiths work. There was something about creating things from simpler materials that fascinated the younger Kaz. This mana forge contained a set of tools for runic inscription. There was a small board with chalk to practice with before attempting the actual inscription. Next to the small board was a simple iron stick. It looked as if it was a fork with only one tine. Using his mana sense to probe the inscription rod, Kaz discovered that it was made up of a metal that he had never seen before. The inscription rod was made of a metal that was lighter than iron, but Kaz could tell that it was several times harder than Klavan steel.

Kaz picked up the inscription rod, and looked at the main body of the mana forge. At the base of the mana forge, a single rune was inscribed. Seeing what the rune was, Kaz smiled and flooded it with his mana sense. The rune lit up as bright as a flame. Within moments, the mana forge started to produce a large amount of mana. Soon, the entire room was inundated with higher quality mana than Kaz had ever felt before. A wide grin broke out onto Kaz’s face as he headed back towards the weapons rack.