Congratulations! You have created an artifact: The Charred Grimoire

Binding successful. You are now the wielder of The Charred Grimoire.

Renault was filled with pride. After two decades of work, he had succeeded in making a grimoire and earning himself another Achievement of the Realm. There was just one issue.

The primal need reverberated down the psionic link between him and the tome.

He wasn’t quite sure what it was hungry for. He hoped it wasn’t flesh and blood. That would be a serious problem.

His fear was proven unnecessary when a tentacle shot out of the open surface of the grimoire and latched onto the scroll that contained the recipe and his notes for the creation of a grimoire. Veins of orange light spiderwebbed across its surface, and every mark quickly faded away. The veins retreated into tentacle, which then retracted, leaving the enchanted paper drained of all knowledge and magic.

Renault was almost overwhelmed by the ecstasy that flowed through the link when the grimoire consumed the scroll.

The mage quickly strode to his bookcases and selected several books: Basic Arcane Theory, Spells and Rituals 101, Kriss’s Compendium of Useful Spellworks, and An Introduction to Enchanting: Circles and Runes.

His selection was placed on the workbench next to the grimoire, and it wasted no time extending a tendril to each book. Rather than the rapturous pleasure of before, he felt an excited enjoyment from the grimoire.

He noted that dim flashes of the pages appeared on the glossy surface as they were transferred from the books.

Before he could do more, Renault’s own hunger made itself known as his stomach tried to vibrate clean from his body. He realized that it was now late-afternoon, and it was well past time to take care of his own bodily needs.

He fixed himself a late lunch of fresh fruits and cream and settled in to watch his new grimoire.

The first book to finish transferring, Spells and Rituals 101, was, predictably, the shortest of the four. Renault was mildly surprised that the next two to finish were Basic Arcane Theory and Enchanting: Circles and Runes, leaving Kriss’s Compendium of Useful Spellworks. After a little thought, it made sense: Kriss’s Compendium of Useful Spellworks was almost entirely spell and ritual formations, which were known to be much harder for magical duplication spells to process.

Given that the books were rendered blank by the process, Renault was quite glad that he hadn’t given the grimoire any of his personal works. He had to be sure they could be recalled by the grimoire first.

When the last of the four books turned to ash, the grimoire flipped closed and radiated a sense of blissful contentment.

With the grimoire closed, Renault was able to take a look at the outside of the tome. The lines of sutures were red and angry, healing together in front of his eyes. The edges, and especially the corners, were blackened as if charred by fire. It made sense, given the name. But it was only the very surface, the hide and bone beneath were in excellent condition.

‘It’s always interesting to see how the history of something carries itself forward through the arcane.’ He mused.

Renault felt a strange tugging on his Aether sense. When he immersed himself into it, the source became clear: the grimoire was sucking up the ambient Aether like a whirlpool. He figured that the grimoire was, in a sense, tired. When he had to stifle a yawn, he realized that he was also quite tired after the day’s work. So Renault had a few more bites to eat, then went to bed early.

Abigail was barely able to make a coherent thought. First she had been so hungry, then the ecstasy and joy of gaining new knowledge to hide within herself had been all consuming, and now her Aether felt thin and incomplete.

Despite her Aether’s purity, her new form’s capacity was so much larger than her old form’s that it was like comparing an ocean to a raindrop. Except she couldn’t actually use all that space, her soul supporting a pool only slightly bigger than before. So she was pulling in as much Aether as she could, refining it to meet her pool’s purity, and using it to expand her power.

Her new grimoire form had many strange instincts and needs. But there was one that she knew came from herself. The ‘charring’ on her cover was physical evidence of her mental scars. What was worse was that when she manifested pages from her malleable inside surface, the edges would appear browned and curled. That wouldn’t do. Sure she was [The Charred Grimoire] but that didn’t mean she had to actually be charred.

When no easy solution presented itself, she gave a mental shrug and began reviewing her very first acquisitions. The scroll holding the grimoire manufacturing instructions turned out to be quite insightful. Not only did the materials list explain a fair amount about her capabilities, the scroll was covered with Renault’s notes. That’s where she learned something very interesting and useful. Drake scales were completely fireproof. Even something called ‘shadowfire’ failed to do much to a drake scale. And while Renault had used up his only perfect drake scale, he had had to buy dozens of supposedly perfect drake scales, most of which he had graded as ‘intact’. There was a scrawled note about how one supplier had had the audacity to sell Renault a scale that had been glued back together. Apparently Renault had paid the man a visit, after which, “He regretted his actions. Briefly.”

After she finished the scroll, Abigail decided to look for Renault’s stash of drake scales. If she was right, (and since both her new instincts and her analysis of the scroll agreed on the matter she probably was), she was able to incorporate magical and mundane materials into herself as a means of self improvement. The scroll had specifically mentioned magically attuned gemstones, but she knew she could do more.

First she had to figure out how to move on her own. While she was sure she could figure out some kind of telekinetic hovering, she wanted a solution sooner.

Trying to grow legs from her cover didn’t work very well, as all she managed were little nubs of flesh that wiggled a tiny bit. Her inner surface, on the other hand, could project tentacles to eat books, so why couldn’t she use that to walk around. A quick mental push later and eight tentacles sprouted, turning her into a sort of spider-book.

Moving around turned out to be much easier than expected, which to Abigail meant that she managed not to fall off the workbench, nor did she knock anything important over. She slowly and carefully made her way over to Renault’s reagent storage, where she faced a new problem. The drawers masked her Aether sense, making it impossible for her to tell which held the drake scales. She could sense several that definitely didn’t hold what she needed, including one that practically shone with flame-aspected Aether. She really didn’t want to mess with that drawer.

Her solution was simply to brute force it. It was inelegant and time-consuming, but effective. Drawer after drawer was opened, exposing their contents to her Aether sense. It was in the fifty-sixth drawer that she found what she was looking for. A silk pouch holding a mixture of dust and shards. The material felt stubborn, and outright rejected any heat or flame aspected Aether. Absorbing the tag on the drawer proved her guess correct: this was [crushed and fragmented drake scales]. Even better was that this reagent was likely cheaper than whole drake scales, so she’d try absorbing it first.

She paused just as she was about to start. Did she really need to do this? She decided that yes, yes she did. She wanted to eat lots of books. To get lots of books to eat, she would need to be a good grimoire. A good grimoire couldn’t have a crippling fear of fire, since fire spells were a popular choice for many mages. And if something as harmless as a bunsen burner made her want to run for the hills, how would she react to an explosive fireball screaming towards her and her wielder? But becoming fireproof would render such fears pointless. So she continued.

After she had eaten about half the bag, something clicked in her mind. She suddenly understood drake scales fundamentally and completely, and not only could she grow them with her mimic flesh, her subconcious had already seeded hundreds of tiny scales all across her cover.

It took large amounts of her Aether to grow, so she redirected her Aether pool growth efforts into growing the scales. After some thought she realized that she should have protection for her ‘pages’ too. The blueprints for an array of chitin like material took shape in her mind. Once she finished it and anchored it to herself, her subconscious would handle the rest.

Her goal complete, she decided to do some meditation while waiting for her wielder to wake up. Sure she could try and eat some of his books, but eating books without permission would make her a bad grimoire, and bad grimoires don’t get books to eat.

Renault woke up with a bit of a headache. He’d definitely overextended himself, between his lifeblood extraction and powering a twinned major ritual. That he had not eaten enough didn’t help matters either.

He was about to go shower and eat when he noticed something wrong.

‘What in the planes happened to my work table!?’

Indeed his work table was a mess. A solid third of his things had been knocked over and several things had even been knocked onto the floor. Half his reagent drawers were open and their contents strewn about. Amazingly nothing appeared to be broken. Renault was racking his brain trying to figure out who could have done this, when he realized that the culprit was sitting right in front of him. The grimoire was not in its previous place, and the trail of destruction linked its old and new locations together.

He began cleaning up. All of his reagents were still there, and none of them had even been opened, save for one in particular. A small white pouch of silk. Within was precisely one-hundred and sixty grams of crushed and fractured drake scales. That was just over half of the 278 grams that the pouch was supposed to contain. He just looked at the culprit and shook his head.

When he picked up the grimoire to put it back in its place, it felt weird under his fingers. A closer inspection revealed the existence of hundreds, perhaps thousands of black diamonds the size of grains of rice. With a start he realized that they were the starts of drake scales.

“Why?” He asked the book.

An impression of the primals of fire and heat returned to him, along with the sensation of dread and terror. The sensation was replaced by a sensation of stalwart imperviousness, and the rejection of fire and heat.

“It wants to be fireproof.” He whispered to himself.

“Do you need more drake scales?” He asked, hoping the book could understand the relatively complex inquiry.

The book returned a sense of the stalwart durability of the scales, combined with a sense of fullness and satiation. It then transmitted the concepts of pure Aether and growth.

Renault found a set of calipers and took measurements of several of the black grains before returning to his task of tidying up.

When he had finished, his stomach growled loudly, reminding him that he had forgotten to take care of his body again. He set aside his work and began fixing himself a large breakfast. When he started cooking some bacon with a skillet over a flame, he felt the grimoire’s discomfort through their link. Through the link he knew that as long as the fire stayed on the other side of the room, the book could tolerate it, although the sooner he was done with the flame the better.

When he finally finished stuffing all the food that would fit into his stomach into himself, he allowed himself to return to his work. Another set of measurements showed that the scales were indeed growing. Next he was ready to try out some things with his new grimoire.

“Show me Kriss’s Compendium.” He enunciated.

The grimoire obliged, flipping open to reveal a perfect replica, even including the front and back cover as the first and last pages. What’s more, it had grown a quartet of tentacles, two at the bottom and two at the top, and had shifted itself into an angled position so as to be easier to read. It even turned itself left and right to keep itself at a good viewing angle. He flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

“Give me this spell formation.”

After several seconds, the grimoire obliged and the spell diagram shifted and collapsed until it became the three dimensional spell formation, still contained within the book. Renault wasted no time in pushing his Aether into the formation, and was rewarded by a ball of soft white that floated up from the page until it hung a meter above where it was summoned.

“Show me a spell that generates water.”

Several seconds passed.

Despite the failure, Renault remained ecstatic. Two of the three most important abilities of a grimoire had worked flawlessly: the ability to recall stored books and the ability to provide ready-to-use spell formations, something the original Compendium couldn’t do. The message implied that the grimoire was working to incorporate the new books, but that it would take some time for the contents to be searchable.

He was excited to show off his accomplishment. But he’d wait a few more days, to have time to get used to working with the grimoire.

Plus it needed the time to finish its transformation and look as cool as it could.