Those who choose their talents blindly are never equal to those who receive theirs.

Wisdom of the Ancients, Book 1

Catherine had a copy of the Mages of America in her library, albeit an older edition than the one Johanna had been lent by Elena at Maistry’s Keep. The two sorceresses, new and “old”, pored over the reference tome, trying to figure out what the impossible Talent sheets had provided.

The “Rust” Talent was apparently the most common metal ability, half of the metal sorcerers had it, and it behaved as described, causing iron or even steel items to turn to rust. Catherine had only briefly experimented with one of the steel spoons that were in the library for when she drank honeyed tea, leaving the thing looking like it dated back from before the Fall.

There was a mention of a metal sense, but only one person ever had it, sixty years ago. It seemed to match what Catherine felt with “Detect Metal”, immediately recognizing the iron in steel somehow, and feeling the fact that the brass of the lanterns in her library was an alloy. The original tier 4 mage, one Nikolai Antonin, had both a passive sense in line of sight and an active one that let him locate masses of metal even through walls. Catherine had managed to feel what she was pretty sure was the safe in her office room upstairs.

The original first edition Mages of America writer who collected and assembled various records had included his opinion that those two senses were linked, and rather than be an underpowered archmage, Antonin had been a dual mage, with just the metal sense and the ice/water icicle ability. Successive editions had kept the opinion, which lend credence to it. Icicle, for instance, was known to be associated with the common cold resistance of almost all water mages. Not all sorcerer’s Talents had dual aspects like this, but it was common enough and the two aspects were usually obviously related.

Johanna was fascinated because they now had “proof” that it was a single ability. And even the true name of that ability. Elena would have been fascinated by all that.

Too bad for her.

“Fusion” matched what was known as metal melting, but that one was rare as well, with only two occurrences ever recorded. Another spoon had been sacrificed to verify that it seemed to parallel the exact description, including the speed at which the steel spoon melted. The melting allowed the sorcerer to fuse – which Johanna thought was the primary purpose of the Talent, given its true name – metal pieces together. Rather than a metal Talent, however, it was thought to be associated with fire, given that the mages with the Talent were granted fire immunity.

The look on Catherine’s face as she held her hand over a candle, without the slightest burning sensation, was priceless.

“You won’t be bothered by too-hot meals or drinks anymore,” Johanna informed her.

Of the “Metal Skin” labeled on the first parchment, there was no trace in the entire book, nor of any similar-looking ability. But Johanna knew firsthand that not all Talents were recorded there.

“With four talents… you are probably one of the foremost sorceresses now. The highest archmage prior to us had only three powers,” Johanna said.

“Well, second to you. I doubt anyone can touch you two in power if what you say is correct,” Catherine amended, looking at both Johanna and Laura.

Catherine “Kitty” Rocastle

Female human, 38 years, 9 months

Shaper

Level: 6 (13000 XP needed)

Mana: 7/125 (+16/hour)

Stamina: 12/23 (+17/hour)

1 unallocated skill point

XP: 1270

STR: 17 (1999 XP needed)

Metal Skin (23)

AUT: 17 (960 XP needed)

Rust (40)

Fusion (40)

AGI: 14

PER: 16 (2982 XP needed)

Detect Metal (22)

DEX: 16 (2000 XP needed)

EMP: 15

13.3% additional lung capacity

Automatic recognition of the primary metal of any alloy

Bodily immunity to fire, up to 700°F (371°C)

“Apparently, metal sorcerers are almost as rare as fire ones,” Johanna said.

“And I’m both.”

The book obviously did not deal with heroic Talents, and Catherine didn’t know of any equivalent to the Society of Sorcerers & Sorceresses of the Americas for Heroes so they were left to guess with regard to Valentin’s three abilities.

“Disarm” was pretty explicit and did not take long to test. A simple tap of his finger on Peter’s weapon caused him to drop his knife to the ground. However, after having done so, Valentin immediately reported a feeling of incapacity in trying to do it again with Tom. He also failed to disarm the countess or any of the others.

Rather than ruling it a fluke, Tom informed the new Hero of the limitation to endurance that came with the Talents. Just like Catherine, he would need to wait at least a night to recover his full stamina and be able to sustain prolonged use of his Talents.

“Armored” took slightly longer and was inconclusive. From the name, it was obvious it dealt with armor somehow, and after fetching his studded leathers, careful experimentation and suggestion by Peter led the Guardian to flex his mental state. But the actual effects proved elusive, and without much in the way of stamina, further experiments were delayed to the next day, after Valentin recovered whatever stores of heroic energies he had.

“Gauge Endurance”… eluded them almost completely. The one thing that seemed related to the name’s implications was that the man now knew all of them were somehow “stronger” than him, including Catherine herself. Johanna thought this moderately accurate, as all of them had at least four talents, while the man himself had only obtained three from the parchments.

Valentin Joel Rosenberg

Male human, 32 years, 1 month

Guardian

Level: 5 (8000 XP needed)

Stamina: 1/95 (+16/hour)

2 unallocated skill points

XP: 955

STR: 16

AUT: 16 (1979XP)

Disarm (21)

AGI: 16 (1997 XP)

Armored (37)

PER: 16

Gauge Endurance (37)

DEX: 15

EMP: 14

Unshakable grip on a weapon under 21 pounds (9.5kg)

Effective Strength +3.7 for skill checks

Perceive level up to 12

Johanna and Tom tumbled on the guest bed that Catherine had provided. She’d adamantly refused to let them walk back across town through the full night to their inn.

“Jory will understand. After all, you left with me, and you’re guests.”

Moore had spent a few hours in a funk he had never guessed he could still feel. Once he’d switched paradigms, it was obvious. The only XP that ever had added to the “global pool” was fighting XP, and it was an equal share. 20% each for the full team… of five. Or as much as any of them, for fights where they fought separately. And why not? He was present in every fight, through the linkage that tied him to the four, and thus “involved”, granting him that XP share. And whenever they used their skills, it was personal and gave no extra to any of the others. Himself included, apparently.

I’ve been spending all of my own XP to power level them.

Not that he’d begrudged it. They had needed all those boosts. Operating under potential was risky, as multiple encounters had demonstrated. And technically speaking, if they had been a normal team with normal abilities, without a bodiless spirit involved, they’d have earned that XP anyway, just more smoothed out. He’d leeched the XP, not the reverse.

He’d tried to pull a character sheet. Anything. A personal XP pool would mean that he had something to spend it on. But nothing happened.

It could be that the user interface required him to “see himself”. All the Interfaces he’d been able to use were anchored on one of the four views, including the Settings Scroll one. He didn’t seem to exist in any form, being an abstract point-of-view in a formless space, and he couldn’t see himself. No third-party view. And no isometric obviously, since the space still felt non-Euclidean in ways that he had no vocabulary to articulate, even to himself.

After failing, repeatedly, to get a character sheet, he’d been forced to admit that, if the XP was truly his own, then he definitively did not operate under the same rules as everyone else.

Besides, he didn’t have a body anymore, and his mind was weirdly alien without a brain to host him. Could STR points apply? Even if they did not reflect physical reality, in his case they made even less sense.

Or maybe he totally misread the situation. After all, he needed the anchor provided by the four to apply this new ability. The deciding factor was the “help” that came with the scroll making. He never had any help for the four’s Interface, unless you counted the description of the skills as a form of help.

Maybe they would see a help popup if they could see their own interfaces?

Given that he lacked any immediate personal UI to use, he had to assume it required something to operate on, or maybe a threshold. The scroll-making only appeared when there was an ancient book to use it on, after all. So, unless he had something to spend XP on, he might not have the UI for it. Either a specific target… or maybe have enough XP to use it. Given that, until now, he thought it was only useful to top one of the four, he’d never accumulated XP beyond just over 5k, after that old store dive in the mana zone.

That meant a change of regime. He needed to hoard that precious XP now, to see if that translated into something specific later, once he had “enough”. If he really could get abilities on his own, ones that didn’t require the four.

Too bad Rocastle doesn’t have a large library. All that sweet free XP…