Skill: [Appraisal]

Designation: Inspection Type

A crafter’s best friend. This is a versatile skill for all those who work with magical and mundane items alike. This skill is used by Enchanters, Smiths, Artificers and all those who have specialized classes with the aforementioned as a prefix or suffix to the specialized class. Enchanters can use it to map out the integrity of rune matrices, Smiths can find out the quality of their metals and Artificers know what inclination their artificing materials are best for as they make their artifices and/or magic items. However, Appraisal is much more than that; this skill is versatile in that it allows crafters to know other crafter’s works from distinctive markings or emblems. Most magic items and artifacts bear their maker’s mark in the form of rune craft that provides information about the object. Can be rebuffed by Obfuscation artifacts, items and Anti-Appraisal wards-World Compendium of Skills , The Order of Vesper, Church of Thea.

When Arthur came to, he found himself on a chair. Apprehension clutched at his gut, as he half expected to find his arms and legs restrained. His paranoia gave way to thoughts of someone wanting to extract the information about his otherworldly origins through torture. It didn’t come. However, a familiar voice broke through,

“ Ah, good, I was worried I was going to have to wait longer than that.”

It was the Volemhir elder or whatever his name was. The old man was seated in a wicker chair, as he nursed a wooden cup of a sweet smelling liquid between his hands. Also, Arthur’s surroundings had changed; now, he found himself in an enchanter’s workshop if he ever saw one.

Half of the workshop was a warehouse with shelves piled high with baubles and other creations. There were things that moved between the shelves, mechanically sorting and arranging crates.

From where he sat, they were impossibly large from their humanoid silhouettes. That side of the workshop was not illuminated, but from their stiff postures, they couldn't have been human or any other race that he'd thought of at that moment.

Arthur was trying so hard not to have his gaze stolen by a variety of strange contraptions and artifacts in various states of disassembly, colorful gems—not crystals mind you, with runes seemingly carved onto them, abstruse inventions that skirted the border between fantasy and incongruity.

The youth thought he’d seen them all; he realized he’d barely scratched the surface.

“ I should have dispelled the time bubble before I attempted to port you here.” the elder muttered again, snapping Arthur out of his enthrallment.

“ What in the hells was that?” he asked.

“ Ah, I am afraid that will take an exposition on the mechanics underpinning the relationship between time and existence.” he smirked. “ However—”

“ No, I don’t wanna hear relativity theories if you have them…”

“Hmm, I might have given you less credit than you’re worth Arthur Sturmdrache,” Volemhir commented, sipping from his cup. Arthur got up from his seat and started walking around.

Hoisted on one wall, he saw several circular objects, glowing with a burnt orange liquid that seemed to flow into and out of several characters. He recognized them as Erythean numbers, the others, he guessed, were Aesylvani script for each of them.

“ Horologyres,” Volemhir spoke behind him. “ Made from the extract of the sun gazer flower and some, should I say, secret reagents”

“So, time?”

“ Astute observation, why is that?”

“ One measures time outside wherever we are, one measures time inside… and you seem to have an awful lot of time on your hands if the girls won’t realize I’ve been gone.”

“ Haha,” the old sylvani guffawed. “ Correct again,”

“ Why am I here though?”

“ Oh? “ he pointedly looked over one section of his workshop. Arthur followed his gaze and saw his Azure Surfer sitting on a pedestal, untouched as the day it’d left his possession.

The elder smirked. Arthur gingerly walked towards it, braving the temptation of looking around at the other enchanted artifacts. He ran his hands along the grain of the ironwood hoverboard. Never had he been so happy to be reunited with his creation.

“You are sentimental after all…” Volemhir muttered. “ Tell me Arthur,—” the man spoke familiarly. Arthur didn’t refute him; if anything, he thought the man’s tone felt grandfatherly. “ How does it feel to be so far away from everything you knew ?”

Arthur froze. ‘Idiot! I’d forgotten about the dryad!’

“ At ease. If I meant you harm, you’d have already been dead. However, we’re still inside Eik’hjerte. So I couldn't harm the hair on your head if I tried.”

“ It feels painful,” Arthur managed to mumble. He didn’t turn around, “ Even more so, when most things you ever knew were ripped away from you.”

“ Hmm, familiar, yes…”

“ Are you a—”

“ No…” the sylvani chuckled ruefully. “ I am but a traveler of time.”

Arthur gasped. ‘A time traveler…No, Chronomancer?!’

“ Ah, a bright one. I see why Eik’hjerte told me you’re worth teaching something. So then Arthur Sturmdrache, will you hear my story?” Volemhir said, almost expectantly, Arthur nodded as he went back to sit down. He looked at his hoverboard longingly. A cup levitated in the air to meet Arthur at his seat, Arthur eyed the brew questioningly. Since he was in the dryad’s domain, he decided to chance it.

“Many years ago…”the sylvani man began in a weary tone. Suddenly he was older than his appearance suggested. He became the picture of a man who’d lived a millenia, traveled everywhere there was to see and gained experiences that stayed with him.

His narration was a bombshell. First, the man was a thousand years old, second, he was an elf. Not a sylvani, that was just a facade he used to walk among his younger kin.

When he shed his illusion, made from a medallion that he wore, Arthur saw how different the elves might have been from the sylvani. They had longer ears and narrower facial profiles and their eyes were slightly larger by comparison. Arthur was so enraptured to see the elf in the flesh; the sylvani barely had half the poise of the old elf.

“ Like the dragons, the fae and other elder races that are the things of children’s tales, we elves would have disappeared into the footnotes of history. Something happened after the Fall.”

“ What was the Fall?”

“ Hmm, the fall of civilizations.”

“ How’d that happen?” Arthur asked. “ His cup of whatever that honeyed hot drink was hung halfway between the table and his lips.”

“ No one knows for sure,” the old man shrugged. “ Some say, It was something the Fiends did as we beat them back, some say the mana density dropped.”

“ Huh?”

“ I am inclined to think the two were not independent events,” he paused mid-sip. “ It first began with the first still-borns among my people—”

Since the elves were said to have been descended from the fae, it was a given that they were more or less magical like them. Thus when the Fall came, unlike the fae, they couldn’t adapt fast enough. The fae had another realm ready, the elves had none.

Increases in incidences of stillborns strangled the growth of the race. It was only due to their long lifespans that they did not completely go extinct. Some developed an attunement to the Aet affinity, perhaps in response to their efforts, working around the time to find a solution to their quandary.

Those who thought themselves able to endure the low density of mana, left to explore other lands in the hopes that a cure would be found elsewhere. To this day, some had yet to return. Those who stayed behind, formed factions.

Somehow it just happened that in their quest to find offspring, other races came into the mix. That was a footnote erased from Eryth history that never saw the light of day. Contrary to what many believed, the beginnings of the sylvani race was not auspicious or an accident. It was engineered.

One faction of elves believed the key to preserving their bloodlines lay in experimenting with other races. At the time, they viewed them as beneath them; primitive brutes. The solution wasn’t perfect however, the offspring did not have the prodigious magical aptitude as the elves. Comparatively speaking however, they were way above what an Erythean at the time could hope to achieve.

Arthur was shocked. It felt like the retellings of war crimes or something even more sinister that happened back on earth, where people were treated as animals.

“ You have to understand Arthur Sturmdrache, the reason I go around like this is because I cannot bear to claim the deference our offspring show us. It was insidious but that is that.” The elder stopped a breath, to moisten his throat. He looked at the horologyre. Arthur couldn't tell what time it was despite his foreknowledge.

“ Thanks to them, Aesylvania lives on,” he said. Arthur blanched. Volemhir gave him a thin smile. “ By all means that does not excuse our deeds. However, we did find out that sylvani bodies were much more adaptive when it came to synthesizing mana from the food they ate. Contrarily, ours did a poor job of it; then we discovered the problem was elsewhere…we did not eat meat.” he laughed, tearing in his eyes.

“ Can you imagine? Our hubris, thinking that eating of meat was barbaric, and that eating plants was cultured,”

Arthur watched a tear freeze before disintegrating into a tiny flurry of snow.

“ By then it was too late, the damage was done. The rest of us went to sleep to await the time when the mana would make a return. Where they are even I cannot tell you,” he murmured wistfully. “ I think we should have taught our offspring better, they seem to have the same contempt for other races as we did. That is why I am here, to make sure the same mistake does not occur again.”

“ That puts things into perspective, I think.”

“That it does, Arthur Sturmdrache,” Volemhir smiled. “ Now then, this was a trade,”

“ Huh? It was?”

“ For sitting through his old man’s droning, I shall now impart you with skills as per Eik’hjerte’s behest.”

“ Oh…”

“Ah, yes...the crux of the story, was, it just so happened it is as partly the dwarve's refusal to help us that led us to ruin... that's why I'd love to put them down a peg if I could” he grinned impishly.

Arthur shivered.

”First, that aura of yours,” the old man sighed, shaking his head.

“The last person who tried to teach me failed. Said it had manifested too strongly, whatever its source was.”

“Hmm, I see.” the old elf nodded, looking him up and down. “your psyche is in flux,”

”That's what she said,” Arthur murmured, putting down his cup ro concentrate on what was being spoken.

“Assuming you'll be going to a human settlement, we best put that away before people misconstrue you as some bloodthirsty individual.”

”How am I going to do that?!” Arthur remarked. “I can't even make sense of what an aura is supposed to be. Where we came from, projecting blood lust was only something we read about in fiction.”

“Hmm,” Volemhir quirked his brow. “You must tell me about this world of yours”

“Does it not surprise you, I might be from an entirely different world?”

“Haha,” he chortled, shedding his serious mien.“In all my travels, I have seen yet stranger things. Rift gates disgorge grotesque creatures from unknown realms every day. It's not so far-fetched to think that a sapient creature would be one of them.”

”Ah,...I wouldn't say I arrived through a rift gate. Though, I happened to come upon an old castle”

Volemhir's white brows furrowed. “It would not do to out yourself as one of those who passed through a rift from another realm.” Arthur shivered, imagining what an supposed alien in area 51 must've gone through. With the existence of another world like Eryth, maybe it was not a stretch to think there was some truth to the conspiracy theories about such a black site.

“Don't you have like, intercity transport gates or something?”

”Ah...no, that would put the aerships out of business.'' he stroked his white beard. “Though, my informants tell me our neighbors down under managed to repurpose a working antecessor gate for only the heavens know what. I would wager rifts and such constructs are one and the same. Ah, a point to note then [Eidetic Notes].”

‘Its the damn dwarves again’ Arthur thought as he looked askance at the elders activation of a memory skill.

“We have yet again strayed away from our prior discussion. [Unity of Mind],” the old man mumbled. “Now then, let me explain how an aura works—”

Arthur barely felt the time pass as his new teacher broke down the nature of auras for him. If he wanted to keep his head down in a human city, he would have to learn how to reign it in, else he risked drawing attention for the wrong reasons.

”Auras inform mana sense. Every mage has one. Warriors too…”said the elf. ” However as a mage your aura is the same reason why you can sense magic around you. Think of it as a second skin, everything of arcane origin that brushes past your aura will be felt through your mana sense.”

Arthur wished he had a notebook somewhere. Unlike Aeskyre's teaching, the old elf seemed to have had a life of academia and he found his mind grasping at everything to be reviewed later with preternatural clarity.

[Eidetic Memory] seemed to be a great skill when the content being dispensed was methodical. If it was given in scattered bits, then he'd have to make a great effort to reorganize it himself.

”For mages your aura is attuned to your affinity.” Volemhir gave him a knowing smile. Then his aura gushed out. It caught Arthur unawares, like a blizzard had just come hurtling through. Then it disappeared.

“I thought you were a time mage, how then are you a cryomancer as well?” Arthur shivered, rubbing at his arms from a non-existent chill. He gave his host a betrayed look when he saw his drink had frozen over; he should've gotten frostbite as well.

“Haha, a chronomancer must have fine control over their aura else they risk causing chaos to their immediate environment. Time is not something that should be meddled with.” saying so, he shook his head wryly as if remembering a past mistake.

“Mmh, where were we? Ah, yes.When you concentrate on your mana sense, you are unadvertently telling your magical aura to perceive the magic around you. ”

“Oh, so that is how it works,”Arthur scratched at the nape of his neck in realization.

“However,” elder Volemhir added,“ there are ways to do this without using it. With enough training, you can hone your mana sense to only perceive what you turn your attention to. Because your aura will always give you away and any creature with a half decent mana sense will sense you too.”

”So how does that help me though? We mentioned my psyche being responsible for my aura's intensity.”

”Patience. We were just now getting to that,” the elder man assured. ”Spirit and subconscious are tied to your aura. What does that tell you?”

”Uhm, I should calm my spirit? gods no, please don't tell me I'll have to sit for quarts humming nonsense and thinking about chakras”

The elder looked at him with a deadpan look.

”Ah...I just jinxed it, didn't I?”

Of course Arthur's supposition was right on the money. He had to sit still and get a feel for his ‘second skin’ as it were and try to pull it into himself. It was easier said than done.

Trying to get a feel for it was like trying to get a glimpse of your own elbow. It was hard, and Arthur realized, stupid in every sense of the word. But it had to be done; but how could he know he was doing it the right way?

Easy or so he thought. While the elder left him to his own devices after giving him a couple of pointers he cheated using his Mana Sight. Which was again, in hindsight the way he should have done it in the first attempt.

Nonetheless, demarcating where his aura was, was not that simple. What he perceived was, he was on the inside looking out of a fog of motes and wisps that surrounded him. It was akin to an octopus being befuddled by its own ink.

Deciding that he would go nowhere if he let his pride inform his refusal to accept that the world of mystics and gurus was real. ’What next? rocks that keep jinxes away? He mused as he initiated the first of his breathing exercises.

He exhaled, loosened the tension in his shoulders as he imagined all the nervous energy bleed away from his body through his breath. Then he drew in a fresh breath and tried to feel every conscious part of himself, stopping short of delving into his own core. Then rinse and repeat.

'Your aura is like a second skin,’ he recalled the elder's words in his thoughts. ‘Aura informs mana sense, psyche informs aura’ he frowned. ’ Then what?’ he thought, finding a metaphorical wall styming his advance.

He felt that there was something that he was missing in that equation somewhere but what? He groaned in frustration, concentration almost slipping from his gasp.

’Psyche is also identity. What do I see myself as? Have I been emulating Aeskyre? Making my presence felt because her gravitas was a constant presence? Is it pride, that wants me to feel that my existence is being felt...wait, pride? When have I ever been conceited? The bloodline!” his eyes snapped open. “I might have an identity crisis. My lost memories.”

“Mmh, you learn quickly, Scion. Learning half the problem is half the problem solved.”

“Here catch,” Volemhir threw him a medallion. “I didn't have to want to use this as a crutch, but it should help mask your aura”

”What is it?”

”That my dear lad, is the next step our your lessons...enchanting”