Chapter 03

Pelle and I added the rest of the cure afflictions to each of our spellbooks.

“This is going to be so helpful!” Pelle said.

I knew she had a spellbook, and she was eager to start filling it. I withheld the fact that my spellbook manifested mana crystals but told her everything else about it.

Ours were quite different. Hers was purple, bound in thick leather. It came to life in her hands. The binding loosened and rolled in the same way that caterpillars crawled. What was extraordinary about her spellbook was that the pages ruffled from an unseen, unfelt wind. Similar to mine, when gazed upon for more than a moment, the air around the book seemed to fish-eye. Light seemed to fear her spellbook, reluctantly crossing space to touch it.

Since she didn’t mention her spellbook’s daily boon—if any—i didn’t ask. Even though we were friends, I thought it’d be better if I kept things to myself as much as possible. I could always change my mind, right? No need to jeopardize my spellbook.

She’d just copied the last cure affliction rune onto another page, but something was bothering her. She bit her lip, thinking hard, staring at the cure frost burn affliction.

“I think I want to include the description and mana cost,” she said. “I’m just not sure how to go about doing that. Do we just write it in, or…”

After a quick bite to eat at the guild post Inn & Bar, we found ourselves at the Scroll House. As before, Mr. Derum greeted us without looking up from his work, asking for just a moment to finish his task.

The Scroll House was a small building with an almost hidden staircase that dove steeply underground behind a swinging shelf. Along every wall, shelves reached all the way to the ceiling. Through the small windows behind the shelves, the light of dusk tainted each stacked scroll. Between the colors of a burning and bruising sky, and the multitude of scrolls, the place seemed to be a mosaic in making.

When at last Mr. Derum had completed his task, we showed him what we’d done with the cures in our spellbook.

“Let’s see,” the youthful fellow said. “Tosin, your cure poison scroll is complete. By the arcane imprint, it’s obviously Bennette’s from Klayvale. Yes, she and I have battled together. We’re overdue for an adventure I think. However, the rest of these are incomplete. It’s just the runes. Why haven’t you completed them?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Pelle said. “We don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Ah—you don’t know what you’re doing. Yes. I see now, well I’m happy to help!”

For the next hour we learned how to properly fulfill scrollwork. There were four components to a successful scroll. The title, the rune, the mana cost, and the description. Once all four of those have been correctly penned, then our arcane imprint will appear at the very bottom to indicate the inscriber.

“Do we have to use mana points to write everything?” I said.

“No-no-no. You’ll use ink. Buy yourself a vial of ink, and you can use your runic stylo to copy everything down. The only part of the scrollwork you need to use your mana for is drawing the rune. Creating the magic item.”

“I’ve got one last question,” I said. “We’re not making scrolls, right? The page of a spellbook isn’t a scroll.”

“Tear it out, and it is,” Mr. Derum said. “Regardless, it all begins with what scholar call scrollwork. Scrolls can be transferred to spellbooks just like your cure poison. Scrollwork is mostly about formatting. If it’s written, it's probably scrollwork”

Since we had all the information and help we needed, we gave Mr. Serum our sincere thanks and then returned to the guild post.

Surprisingly, ink was on the expensive side, costing 5 silver for a small glass vial. We decided to split the cost and keep the vial in our room to share. Made sense since we both had spellbooks now.

Over the next few days, after lessons and weapons training, Pelle and I finally finished detailing the cure affliction runes in our spellbooks. Completing the first one was the most exciting because that’s where we saw our arcane imprints for the very first time.

My handwriting was abominable, and Pelle had doubled over in laughter the entire time I copied the details of the cure deep wound rune. She stopped laughing when I’d just finished the description and my arcane imprint began to materialize at the bottom of the page. We huddled before her desk in wonder.

It was a single drop of water. Perfectly round and pastel blue. That’s it. It would evolve over time the more I did scrollwork, and I was extremely curious what it would evolve to.

“I want to see mine!” Pelle said and practically shoved me out of the way.

I watched over her shoulder while she completed the scrollwork for cure poison. Though she was excited to finish it, she was meticulous with her handwriting and took her time. The rune was perfectly drawn using her mana. The title, mana cost, and description were evenly spaced and it looked good. Really good.

Upon completion, her arcane imprint began to materialize. It was pastel brown and looked more like the letter Y, then anything else. We couldn’t figure out what it was for the life of us.

“I’m just—I’m clueless,” Pelle said.

“Kinda looks like a nose?” I said.

“A nose? Are you crazy?”

“Well, a snout, maybe. Like the nose of a squirrel.”

“Hmnh,” she said.

After we finished the scrollwork for each cure affliction, Pelle and I debated on whether our arcane imprints had evolved after. It might have been my imagination, but I swore that mine was a little bigger. If it was, each previous arcane imprint reflected that, so there was no way to compare.

Scrollwork wasn’t the only thing we’d done those last few days. Weapons training had been tough. I’d trained a few hours each day with my flagstaff, and that was after lessons had fried my brain as we went over afflictions. I’d had to equip thick chains upon the eyelets of the flagstaff once more, all while focusing on parrying close combat strikes.

It was astonishing to look back on my physique, having just entered the beginner’s guild. I’d been a lot scrawnier. I wasn't too far from scrawny now, but there were certainly signs I was gaining muscle.

Apart from physical training, I’d been studying the book of afflictions. There were thousands of afflictions. The book was enormous. Runic cure combinations were increasingly more complex when afflictions were layered. It seemed crazy to me that so many existed. You couldn’t anticipate a specific complex affliction when dungeon crawling, right? It seemed the best option was to carry around a book of afflictions, that way, whatever happened, you could take the time to find the cure. 500 gold for a permanent copy of the master book was a bit out of my funds at the moment. Even the book for 50 gold was quite pricey.

All of us at Magic & Lance were also preoccupied with an additional task. Preparing for the upcoming dungeon chain. So far my team consisted of myself, Pelle, Arris, Lep, and Robern. Robern was a rogue that Pelle had grouped up with a couple of months ago. They’d maintained a friendship since then and liked the idea of forming a group altogether. After deliberating, we’d decided to add two more to our party.

Vynk, warrior: Kildd’s Greatsword Level 68; Replace Blade Power Technique.

Foli, ancienne: Summon Steed of Elwohire Level 15; Staff Level 12.

What better way to get to know each other than over creamed ale at the guild post Inn & Bar late one night. We had ourselves bowls of fresh fruit, bread with oil and vinegar, and deep fried potatoes.

I was particularly absorbed in a new ale I’d never had before. Cinnamon creamed ale. The brew was squeezed straight from autumn foliage, and the foam was custard colored with flecks of copper. Several times, I’d been so absorbed in the flavors of my ale, that my companions had to battle for my attention.

“Tosin! Tosin—Hey tosin!” Pelle said, waving her hands in front of my face.

“What? Oh—I’m sorry. Uhm—what’s going on? What did I miss?”

“How much mana do you have?” Foli said. “Lep has the most, with 140.”

“668,” I said without thinking.

Cinnamon and cream was all I could think about. The ale was crisp and light. The flavors were dream-like, and made me recall when I’d met Boera for the first time. Meeting a divine for the first time had been an absolutely enchanting event. A tankard of cinnamon creamed ale was absolutely on par with meeting Boera. No two ways about that.

It was the following silence that disturbed me from my musings. I straightened and looked at the faces of my comrades. Their mouths all hung open in disbelief. Except for Pelle, who balked.

“You’re joking,” Arris said, breaking into a potato.

“About what?” I said.

“668 mana?” Arris said.

Oops. With every fiber of my being, I didn’t want to divulge how I’d come to that number. I should have kept my wits about me. I panicked and said the first thing that made any sense at all.

“I—uh ran into some loot,” I said.

“You ran into some loot?” Lep said. “You just ran—Into what sounds like a couple hundred mana crystals? You just happened upon them?”

“Were they high level mana crystals?” Foli said.

“Yes,” I said.

I have no idea if anyone bought my lie, and I felt awful for telling it. Was my dilemma not as serious as I was making it? My options were to lie, or tell the truth and risk having my spellbook stolen. I didn’t want to risk anything, so I played it safe, telling my comrades what they wanted to hear. Whether they believed me or not, I had no idea.

Eventually the conversation turned to the dungeon chain ahead of us. There were several options, all equally mysterious. All our trainers had explained to us that, outside of the guild, we’d have a good idea of what we’d be crawling for. For this upcoming experience, they wanted us focused on surviving the dungeon chain, not bickering back and forth over who gets the final item. Therefore they withheld what each dungeon chain could reward us with. Every one of us was told that there would be bickering.

Personally, I couldn’t care less who got the item. As long as we all worked together and kept each other alive, I’d be happy with whatever other random loot there was.

“We know next to nothing about the dungeon chains, right?” Robern said.

“Correct,” Pelle said.

“How about this,” I said, “If we can at least find out where they're located, we can avoid the dungeons in extreme environments—like the tundra.”

“I’d honestly like to avoid water,” Foli said. “Difficult to fight in, that’s all. Otherwise I don’t care. Somewhere not freezing would be nice.”

After conferring, we were all in accord. Our final choices came down to three different dungeon chains. Lowland caverns, plains, and jungle valley. Since most of us had gone underground more often than not, we decided to pick the jungle valley.

“Might take us to somewhere wet and freezing,” Arris said. “You never know.”

“Let’s hope not,” I said. “I’m a little tired of it. It’s already freezing out, so going to a higher altitude just sounds insane to me.”

“Are you afraid of the cold?” Vynk said.

“No, not afraid. Like I said, I’m just tired of it.”

“Well that cloak looks mighty warm,” Lep said. “I think you’ll be alright no matter where we end up. Plus, who knows what’s in store for you?”

“So,” Pelle said, “When does the dungeon chain dive begin?”

“Next week,” Foli said.

“We should get together at least once a day to talk strategy, go over our strengths and weaknesses, yea?” Pelle said.

It was an excellent idea that we firmly held onto. For the next week, after lessons and weapons training, we met at the guild post Inn & Bar for some food, some drink, and to plan our adventure. Sometimes we were so exhausted that we hardly covered anything. Other times we had to cut ourselves off so that we could all get to sleep on time.