Riloth the 19th the 74th

I watched as Dagmar stepped into the Dahn and stood looking around, ignoring the warning and countdown of the golems, her posture radiating reverent awe. At two on Timothy’s—or Jimothy’s?—countdown, she stepped out and the warning halted.

“Get your butt off the ground and over here,” she shouted to me, over whatever reverential moment she had experienced.

I obliged, stood up from where I’d sat to rest, dusted off my pants, and went to join her.

“Here is the plan,” she said, “We’ll step in and spread out. I will go towards the spatial anchor golem on the left, and you will go to the other one on the right. When the countdown begins, I will guess a passphrase. When that guess is wrong—which it will be—they will attack. I should be able to dodge the golem long enough to get a hit or two off on it. When the other golem—”

“Jimothy,” I interjected absentmindedly.

—”Jimothy? I’m choosing to ignore that,” she said with a heavy sigh, rubbing her forehead with her index finger and thumb. “When the other golem gets close to you, teleport over to the spatial anchor and take a swing. Any questions?”

“Just one. How do we get out?” I asked.

“The same way you did before.” She brought her fist down into her open palm for emphasis.

“Wonderful. Lead the way.”

We stood outside the door and Dagmar began a count from five.

I don’t want to die again. I haven’t had a breakdown in a few days. Is it because I haven't died, or because dealing with this short pile of crazy has kept me distracted from my fraying sanity? I guess we will find out.

“One!” Dagmar shouted, and I stepped in only to hear her shout “Go!” after I was inside.

Timothy began his alert and I shouted to Dagmar, “You didn’t say anything about ‘Go!’”

“Incorrect!” came Timothy’s strange childlike voice as the lights went out.

“I’m going to enjoy watching you get squished,” came Dagmar’s voice from somewhere to the left.

I had activated my Willsight before entering, and by that strange sense I made out every facet of the extremely magical room. Each surface and object radiated its own light, all of varying hues, save for the furniture whose dull gray stood out clearly in contrast. In this otherworldly vision, I saw Dagmar's amber colored profile dodge Timothy’s first swing.

That's actually a pretty color.

She ducked behind the golem and made a powerful two-handed swing at its leg. The war pick made contact with a loud plink, accompanied by the sound of chipped stone hitting the floor. I didn’t have time to watch further, as Jimothy had reached me. Before his swing hit, I heard another plink from Dagmar and I Blinked away, appearing before Timothy, who was in the process of turning around to squash the pesky dwarf. I was torn as to who I wanted to win in their game of tag.

I never thought I'd empathize with these golems.

I swung at Timothy with all my strength as soon as I materialized before him. My war pick struck high on the golem’s “thigh.” The impact sent a stinging pain shooting up my arms as the vibrations passed through the weapon’s shaft, causing me to drop the pick in surprise. My attack hadn’t even left a mark. Dagmar made another attack at Timothy before the golem crushed her with its blocky fist.

Seeing Dagmar get crushed was far from satisfying. So much blood, in such a short form.

Before I could recover my weapon to make another attack, the golem struck me on the head. The helmet did nothing to protect me.

Riloth the 19th the 75th

“That was a piss poor showing,” Dagmar’s voice woke me from my hangover slumber. “You just couldn’t keep your mouth shut for five seconds, could you?”

“Who goes on ‘Go?’” I yelled back as I sat up, throwing my covers across the room in frustration.

“Denizens of a civilized society,” she deadpanned.

Ignoring her, I grabbed the potions she’d left on the desk, downed each in a single swig and changed into my travel clothes in silence.

“I’m going to go get breakfast,” I said as I left.

With Dagmar’s early wake up and potion thefts, I had both time and opportunity to enjoy the breakfast spread.

When I got downstairs, the meal was laid out before me on a long table covered by a white cloth. I’d never seen the spread laid out in full before.

It was beautiful. Magnificent.

There were three types of breakfast meats: bacon, sausage, and ham. Potatoes, oatmeal, pancakes, cinnamon egg toast, eggs, and bagels filled row after row of silver serving platters and each had toppings and spreads to add. A man stood at the end, making omelets to order, and a pyramid of baked goods dominated a table with puff pastries of a dozen varieties and shapes I’d never seen.

I nearly wept at the sight. I filled up my plate with a little of everything and went back for seconds. After cleaning my second plate, I was about to go back for thirds when I spotted the coffee. I’d missed it in my excitement over the food. There sat five large silver pots of the bitter nectar on a table opposite the pastries. They were labeled “Dark,” “Light,” “Medium,” “Hazelnut,” and “Dragon’s Blend.”

Simon, you bastard. You were holding out on me!

I sampled each, and determined that the Dragon Blend was by far the best. Reading the name caused me to look around nervously.

He can't read my mind—well he can, but I was very aware of it happening, so I'm fine.

I banished my paranoia and took a cup of the blended brew to my seat. It had hints of chocolate and a nutty aftertaste.

Dagmar came down as I was contemplating a third cup, but I’d already over-eaten and suspected I had a long day ahead of me. She sat down at my table as Simon and crew were packing up the remnants of the meal.

“So, what's the plan?” I asked her, really hoping she didn't bring up Simon again.

“We need to see how much damage we did and repeat the attack on the golem for a few days.”

“Great, it's a date, but I don’t think we should head back until later. I need to get back to training. Before, when I was alone, I’d spend the morning training before making each attempt on the Da—door," I caught myself. We'd agreed to keep conversation as obtuse as possible in town. "I think that would be a good use of my time.”

“That’s not a terrible idea,” she said, a glowing appraisal. “Your instincts in battle aren’t horrible, but you need to learn to think. When you realized you jumped early on the count, you should have committed and trusted me to follow your lead. I think you will learn eventually. How were you training?”

“I found a retired adventurer. The Chosen of Ten-Li, Ren Griffon’s Bane. She has a style that seems suitable for my particular... talents.”

She let out a sigh of relief, “Perfect, I was worried you were going to ask me to do it. I’m off then. Be outside the Parlor with the wagon and supplies at four. I’ll bring the weapons”

I waved silently at her back as she left, then left myself, to arrange for Simon to pick up a wagon and dinner to go, along with giving him a note for Trish.

Ren’s training went much the same as before. I showed her what I knew so far, and we performed spell augmented sword training for two brutal hours. Afterwards, I went to the baths to clean up and recover from the excursion before our assault on the Dahn. Sitting in the baths, I resolved to ask Dagmar to steal more clarity potions the next day. I would be okay for tonight's attack, but I’d like to be able to practice all out with Ren and still be fresh for the Dahn.

I met Dagmar outside the Parlor at the appointed time. She carried the two war picks from before. When she got closer, I saw that they didn’t look exactly the same. They were covered in etched runes.

“Where’d you get those?” I asked, pointing to the weapons.

“These are the same ones as before. I etched the runes into them to make them more effective against the golems,” she explained, holding one out to me to inspect.

“Hmm, what do these do?” I asked, inspecting the strange lines covering the weapon from shaft to tip. “They look a lot like the ones I saw on all those weapons in the outpost.”

I stood there inspecting the war pick for some time before it registered that Dagmar hadn’t answered. I looked up to see her standing there, face red with anger.

When we made eye contact, she yelled, “You never told me about any flooding runic weapons, you Fauell cursed fool! I spent all day making these, and they are a poor substitute for a standard issue runic weapon!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think to describe the outpost, I just assumed you would know what it had,” I explained.

“We don’t just leave runic weapons lying around for the Waatin or forsaken to find!” she seemed to speak down to me as if talking to a child despite the two foot height advantage in my favor. “We need to go there first thing tomorrow. We might stand a chance—depending on what we find.”

I described the contents of the fortress the best I could remember on the way to the Dahn. Her anger lessened as it became clear to her that the weapons would prove useful.

“So, how do I use these runic weapons?” I asked after granting Dagmar with a solid fifteen minutes of silence.

“Of course you don’t know how to use these,” she said, burying her face in her hands. “Do you know how to imbue Will?”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve already told you that I do not.”

“We are definitely going to need to find that fortress. These crude runes will do nothing in your hands. Can you at least detect when your Will is draining?” she asked.

“That I can do.”

“Alright," she said. "Imbuing an object with Will is simple. You hold it in your hand, and picture your Will going into the object.”

“That's it?” I asked.

She handed me a dagger from her belt. “I said it was simple. Try it.”

I held the dagger in my hand, and focused on it, picturing my Will passing through my arm and into the weapon. It’s hard to describe the presence of Will in your mind. Most people live their whole lives unaware of it, but once you know how to use it for magic—and runes I suppose—you gain an awareness of it.

This is a bad analogy, but bear with me. Awareness of Will is a lot like having money in one of the halfling banks. You can’t see it or sense it, but when there’s money in the account, you have peace of mind knowing that you could draw upon it when need be. When you need to buy something, you withdraw the amount you require and get to handle it for a time before it goes out into the pocket of a merchant, never to be seen again. On the other hand, when your account is empty, you are very, very aware. It drags you down and is a burden on your thoughts. A person unaware of Will is like a man who doesn’t know he has an account at a bank. The money is there for him to use, if only he knew how to take it.

Unlike a bank account, Will refills itself much faster than the paltry interest rates offered by the halflings, and the way to get more is to spend as much as you can each day.

I’d thought up the bank analogy long before the resets, but used it to help focus on Dagmar’s instructions. I pictured myself dropping coins into a waiting palm as I held the dagger in my hand. After a few moments of effort, I started to sense the very slight draining on my Will. About as much as if I was casting the Glow cantrip on repeat.

“I feel it working!” I exclaimed.

Dagmar quickly plucked the dagger from my hand, held it in her hands and closed her eyes in focus.

“Why were you thinking about a bank?” she asked.

Dumbfounded, I asked in return, “How did you know that?”

“When you imbue your Will into an object, your thoughts go with it. We call this intent. This is useless in most situations, as the intent quickly fades and in most objects is very vague. If, on the other hand, you know the proper runes to match the intent—or have a flawless gemstone— you can make the intent stick around. If you know the rune for a Font, the channeling runes to create the right effect, and the intent to match both, you can make yourself a runic weapon or create a ward.”

I froze taking it in.

That's the secret to runes? That seems so simple. How have us “Waatin” not figured this out?

“Can I try sensing your intent?” I asked.

Wordlessly, Dagmar held the dagger in both hands, and then handed it back. Holding it, I closed my eyes and focused on the dagger, clearing my mind of all thoughts to make room for whatever thought Dagmar had left.

“All I sense is nothingness. No wait. Not nothing,” I corrected myself, “Silence. Were you thinking about silence?”

“Close enough,” she said with a shrug. “I was wishing you’d shut up more often.”

Ignoring the comment, I focused on my success instead

“That seems easy enough. Why won’t these weapons work for me?”

“Let me answer your question with a question. How long did it take for you to learn to shape your Will into the proper pattern to cast a cantrip?” She didn't wait for me to answer, continuing, “Not only do you need to know in your mind the effect you want to manifest, you must also shape that Will into the correct pattern. If the intent and pattern of the Will do not match the rune, nothing will happen—nothing good at least. This is an old skill that dwarves still learn for situations like this, but our modern equipment has reservoir gems and transmutation runes built into them. Any Will fed into the reservoir gem is released and converted into the proper form to power the rune it is built to supply. With these, you only need to imbue the weapon with raw Will for its runes to activate. Those are beyond my basic rune crafting abilities to build in such a short time.”

She didn’t explain much that day; she was very reluctant to share information early on. It took a while, but eventually I got a clear understanding of runes and imbuing items with Will. Everything on Kaltis has a unique capacity to contain Will based on what it's made of, along with its form. If you try to imbue an object with more Will than it can hold, the Will just goes into the surrounding environment instead. Everything also has a “stable” level of Will it can contain, largely based on the form of the object. If you put Will into an object—above the stable level, but within its capacity—the Will will drain down to that stable level over time.

The best way I can visualize this—which is better than my bank analogy—is by picturing objects as buckets with holes in the side. The capacity of an object is the size of the bucket, and the stable level is the height of the hole in its side. If you fill a bucket up with water, it will drain to the level of the hole. Everything has a different bucket size. Some buckets are large, with holes near the bottom. Others are small, with a hole near that top. Beyond those factors, the hole's sizes can vary, affecting how quickly the water drains.

The best objects for retaining Will are cut gemstones. Not only do gemstones have the highest Will capacity of any material, when they are cut, the stable level can be brought up to that of its capacity. Gemstones—cut properly—are massive barrels free of holes.

That brings us to runes, which break all those rules. Will imbued into a rune fades extremely slowly if it is shaped to match the rune. If you carve a rune into dirt, the Will can remain for a month if it is left undisturbed. Normally, Will imbued into the ground becomes diffuse immediately, as it’s difficult for a person to conceptualize a small patch of dirt being a discrete object.

If the intent in the WIll also matches the rune, it will manifest an effect. For example, a rune for cutting connected to the Font of Separation can be imbued with Will shaped to fit the rune. This allows the weapon to draw on the Font and slice through whatever it touches.

Some runes can produce variations of their effects by further focusing the intent that goes into them. A sufficiently advanced cutting rune could be imbued with the intent to only cut certain materials, a fire staff requires intent to shape the effect it emits, and a light rune can change colors or intensity. With enough skill and the proper runes, dwarves can perform magics with a flexibility somewhere between sorcery and wizardry.

Runes are similar to the constructs wizards use to channel the power of the Fonts. When will is channeled through a rune that is connected to a Font, they harness the magics of the Arcane Realm in our own. But, as far as I can tell, the shapes don't match up. A rune to produce light will use the same symbol for the Font of Light as the spell form for a Light spell, but the runes and constructs that create the effect are different.

I digress, let's get back to that day. I continued to inspect the weapon as we traveled down the road. For almost an hour, I tried shaping my Will into the pattern of the rune, but I couldn’t get the Will to stick. In that time, I did become more adept at sensing the intent in an object. Now that I knew to look for it, I could briefly sense my thoughts—mostly the idea of focusing—in the object before it faded.

Inspired, I closed my eyes briefly to activate my Willsight. The world took on a familiar gray overcast, save for Dagmar and the few magical items around us. I examined the war pick in my hand and discovered that, instead of the uniform gray haze of the world I expected, it had a subtle blue hue to it, reminiscent of my own aura.

I once more attempted to imbue the runes with Will. Starting from where my hand gripped the shaft, the delicately engraved lines took on a blue glow which quickly propagated down the length of the weapon. After only a moment, the blue seeped out of the confines of the runic lines and spread through the gray of the shaft like a drop of ink in water, where it colored the whole weapon a pale shade of blue before fading back to gray.

Well Flood. I was right. It is Willsight.

I spent the rest of the ride practicing forming the patterns of the runes in my mind before imbuing them. Willsight made the effort of focusing Will more difficult, much like it slowed my spellcasting, but with its aid, I could now see the areas of the runes where my form differed from the intended shape, and use that knowledge to refine my patterns. Unlike forming spellforms in one's mind inside their mental vault, there is no way to see the pattern you are forming while imbuing runes. While the complexity of the runic patterns are as a child’s house of cards compared to a mansion, the house of cards must be built without the benefit of sight. My control over my Will was very good from years of training in wizardry, so the feedback Willsight provided far outweighed the hindrance.

But, I could now see—sort of.

By the time we reached the turn-off, I had managed to empower the runes enough to pierce the wooden bed of the cart, with only the weight of the war pick providing the pressure.

A whistle came from the front of the cart when I’d accomplished the feat.

“Gravel and mud, I didn’t expect you to figure that out so fast.”

Gravel and mud? Is that good or bad?

Not wanting to reveal the secret of my Willsight at this time, I reached for a likely excuse, “I guess being a wizard and a sorcerer helped.”

I then mentally patted myself on the back for not completely fumbling over the lie and schooled my face from smiling.

“Aye, that must be it. We teach the trick to our children to better build their Will capacity as they grow, and those few who excel at it are chosen to be wizards. We don’t have any sorcerers, so I can’t say if that would help.”

“No sorcerers?” I asked, “Why not?”

“None of my people were stupid enough to drink dragon blood, and the gods did not frolic among us siring demigods as they did among the surface.”

We unloaded the cart and carried our gear through the woods to the clearing. I judged I still had about half my Will. I'd only used slivers of it while trying to match the runes’ shapes when compared to the amount needed to cast a spell.

Before the door, Dagmar bent over as if to pick something up, but then stayed, her hands touching the tips of her toes. After nearly a minute, she straightened and then started rotating at the waist with her arms spread wide.

“What in the oceans are you doing?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Stretching, you daft fool. Always stretch before a battle you can anticipate. Do you know anything? Or is that why you ask so many damned questions?”

“Asking questions is how you learn. Show me what to do.”

We spent a time stretching before the door, bending and reaching across the body in strange contortions. I could feel my muscles relaxing after the cramped confines of the cart bed I’d retired to while testing my imbuing.

“Good,” she said once we were done, and it was all the feedback Dagmar ever gave. High praise from her.

“Let's go,” she said, and walked to the door.

War pick in hand, she pushed it open.

"On, three," she said, and with a sigh added, "no 'go.'"

We stepped in on "three," and spread out according to the plan. When the countdown neared "One," Dagmar shouted a passphrase in Torcish, "Pebble, coarse, roach," but it was incorrect and Tim and Jim attacked.

Not to bore you with the details of our deaths, but the attempt went much the same as before: my timing blunder had little impact it seems, though I did feel the stretching had made my movements easier, if only by a hair. But, sometimes a hair is all that stands between life and Jimothy’s bone-crushing fist.

While I had learned how to imbue the runes from the safety and discomfort of the cart bed, doing so in battle was a very different matter. I saw in my Willsight that the runes were not maintaining their Will, and my attacks were as ineffectual as before. Dagmar’s, on the other hand, were noticeably improved. Where before she'd made small divots the same approximate size as my crossbow attacks had, now she removed stone in pieces the size of a plum.

Despite the correct timing and improved weapons, we did not perform much better in the number of attacks we could make. After getting my attack off on time, I stumbled on the remains of my old corpse and became Timothy's first victim for that day.