Riloth the 19th the 111th-121st

"Spells?" I asked, dumbfounded "How? I can't read spellforms, and we don't have any even if I could. Are you going to teach me?"

"Don't laugh at me," Dagmar scolded. "You're not as smart as you think you are and you know more than you realize."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you're halfway to understanding spellforms already. Wizards stole the idea from our runes. It's the same basic principle."

"I—" I stumbled for words, unable to even complete a thought "—They can't—we just..."

I stopped trying to speak and took a deep breath.

Spellforms are imbued with Will! That's how they do it. It's so simple. I should have seen it as soon as Dagmar showed me that it can be done. There must be some way to imprint the template for the spell construct into the paper. The spell form itself must be the pattern that corresponds to the intent, allowing it to be stable and remain in the paper. That's why they don't make any sense! It's not a language at all! It's just runes!

Wait, Dagmar said that gemstones could hold intent indefinitely. Could spell constructs be stored in gems? Could I—

Dagmar snapped her fingers in front of my face, breaking my train of thought.

"You did that thing again," she said, exasperated.

"What thing?"

In response, Dagmar put on a vacant expression and stared dumbly into the distance.

"I don't look like that."

"I'm not going to argue about this," she said, heading off a back and forth of 'na ah' vs 'uh ha.' "So, I take it, you figured it out?"

"Yeah! The spell forms hold imbued Will with the spell construct template inside them. Could—"

"I'm gonna stop you there. You're right, but keep your speculations to yourself unless you think it's truly relevant."

I caught myself, considering.

A diamond spellbook would be pretty amazing. I could probably—no. Not relevant.

“Alright, so maybe I could learn spells if we found a spell form, but what are the chances we find any of those?” I asked

“You mentioned a hoity-toity wizard being around, right? I say we find him, take his spellbook, and you can study it. If he doesn’t have the spells we need, I’m sure we can find something. The Tower doesn’t have the iron grasp on magical knowledge they seem to think they do. We’ve known for some time that the forsaken have the knowledge of spell forms. This attack on the Hardune all but confirms they have had contact with the surface of the Continent, and it's likely someone gave it to them. I expect if we dig enough holes, some spellbooks might turn up.”

We settled on a loose plan. Find the wizard, acquire his spellbook, get away with enough time for me to study it. The plan left a lot to the imagination between parts one and two. We didn't outright say it, but we would likely need to kill the wizard to take his spellbook.

Am I okay with killing a Tower wizard and Seeker? If you'd asked me before Edgewater I'd have been onboard with the idea, though back then I'd never killed anyone. But now? I was wrong about Daulf—I think. What if the Tower isn't full of murderous zealots? Could this wizard be altruistic at heart? Fanos, his seeker, seemed nice enough. I don't know. Maybe we can steal it and it won't come up.

The first stop was the lobby, to ask Simon where the wizard had gone. He was reluctant to share information about guests, but when I told him that Daulf had an important message for Fanos he relented, and told me that they'd left the night before heading northwest. There had been reports of sorcerers in one of the abandoned forts dotting the woods, and they went to investigate.

After that, we decided to split up. I'd venture overland in search of signs of them, and Dagmar would find which fort the sorcerers occupied via the Kituh.

I won't bore you with the details, but I searched the woods for over a week in vain before Dagmar found a series of collapsed tunnels where a fort ought to have been, all the while wishing I knew where Roland had been off to this whole time. I resisted the urge to bring my friends—and Roland—into a doomed battle, but I had no problem recruiting him as a tracker. Well, no problem besides the issue of having to spend time with Roland.

Once she found the collapse, she searched for a surface entrance and continued overland. They killed her quickly, having heard her curses against Assuine far before she found their fort. She brought me out that direction the next today and directed me to a tunnel just outside the walls.

"Isn't it a security risk having all these tunnels leading into your bases?" I asked as we reached the surface.

"They would be if they weren't all trapped as a porcupine's cooch," she stopped to laugh at her own joke and then stared at me expectantly.

"What's a porcupine?" I asked, knowing full well what it was. She never laughed at my jokes, it seemed fair to return the favor.

"Bah," she huffed, waving me away. "If you open or breach one of these tunnels it triggers a collapse—normally. Whatever destroyed the Kituh and forts around here also disrupted the defenses."

We parted, her returning to her nature-free burrow and me trekking out into the woods towards town. The journey to get here took about an hour, making the time somewhere between eight and nine. We had backtracked around collapsed tunnels and some areas where we had to walk over destroyed sections of runes.

Positioning by the sun, I walked through the underbrush in search of a wizard. As had become my custom, I immediately activated Mage Armor to keep Dagmar's dreaded nature away.

The forest here was not a part I'd yet explored, and it was much rockier, with crevices and trees growing between large boulders. It was as I was climbing over one such boulder they found me.

Just as I crested the top of the rock, I heard a distant shout.

"Sorcerer!"

I looked towards the voice in time to see a massive bolt of lightning zap through the hundred-foot gap that separated us, and strike me directly.

The pain was unimaginable. It was like I was experiencing a full body seizure while on fire, and then as suddenly as the pain appeared it stopped, and I was being woken by Dagmar.

Riloth the 19th the 122nd

I awoke to Dagmar’s gentle nudge—she’d gotten much kinder in her methods of awakening, so long as I didn’t pull a prank or anger her the today before.

“I found them!” I shouted as soon as I came to consciousness, the intense spasm and pain a distant memory.

I quickly went over my experience, and drew my best estimate of their location with a crude sketch.

“So, how’d they get the jump on you?”

“I’m not sure. As soon as I crested a rock, the Seeker seemed to know I was there. Maybe they have a spell or magic item that detects sorcerers... or maybe magic. I did have Mage Armor active while I ran through the forest.”

“Well, don't do that this time then,” Dagmar scolded. “I think I can get you a little closer this time. You think you can find your big rock and wait for them?”

“We’ll see.”

We set off to the Kituh, and Dagmar deposited me in another seemingly random patch of forest. She pointed off in a direction indicating the general bearing of my crude map marking, and went back into the tunnels.

The trip to this new location was about the same as the previous today’s, but if Dagmar was right and I was closer, I should be able to get to the boulder from before much sooner.

I made off into the general direction indicated, without Mage Armor, resorting to using my sword as a machete once more, and suffering countless scratches and snags. The sound of my trekking seemed deafening in my own ears compared to the comparatively silent passage of Mage Armor.

Before finding the previously encountered boulder, I ran into something strange. Sitting a dozen yards away in the middle of a relatively flat section of the rocky terrain, sat a giant green bubble, sticking ten feet up and submerged halfway into the ground. The color was the solid green of a leaf, though the uniformity of the hue was alien in the vibrant mix of browns and greens that made up the surrounding woods.

Out of curiosity, I activated my Willsight to examine the bubble in greater detail. The color in my Willsight was very different, and brought to mind cheddar cheese, for lack of any other reference.

There's probably some flower that could better describe the color, but I’m going with cheese orange.

As I examined the strange bubble, it disappeared in an instant, leaving behind two figures. One a solid cheddar orange, and the other cheddar orange and a green reminiscent of—well—broccoli. His head, forearms, hands and legs were green, while the orange aura of his companion covered his upper arms, torso, and thighs.

He looks like a carrot! That must be some sort of armor spell cast by the companion.

With a brief effort of Will I banished my Willsight and saw that the carrot man was Fanos, and the cheddar aura’d figure was the wizard I pursued—whose name I’d yet to learn.

I ducked lower behind my rock, and cast a Message spell to Dagmar.

“Found them." I sent.

The spell found her quickly, she’d not traveled far, and the Will drain was not too significant.

I kept them in my sight as I cast the spell, which allowed me to watch as the wizard’s head snapped in my direction as soon as I’d sent the spell off towards Dagmar.

“Sorcerer!” he shouted as he waved the wand in his hand quickly back and forth in a zigzag gesture before him.

Lightning erupted from the wand, and I ducked down behind my rock just in time for the massive stream of lightning to streak over my head, accompanied by an ear shattering crack.

Immediately after it passed, I leapt back up, with a Lightning Bolt of my own already forming in my mind. Any tinglings of hesitation to killing the wizard were gone after his two unprovoked attacks. As soon as I could see over the rock, I threw my hand forward, releasing the lightning at him.

The wizard had begun to raise his hand up in a warding gesture as soon as my head cleared the rocks, and as my lighting left my fingers spoke a word I could not make out, deafened as I was. My spell streaked across the distance with a crack of its own, though compared to what I’d just heard it was as a cat’s meow was to a lion’s roar.

Lightning met an invisible barrier just in front of the mage’s hand, causing it to arc out in all directions like a spider web before dissipating, leaving the wizard unharmed.

Shield! Flood!

I didn't know much about traditional wizards, but I did know about Shield, having longed to manifest it as my mother lobbed rocks at my head.

While we commenced our long range duel, Fanos sprinted across the rocky terrain towards me.

“It’s Daulf’s charge!” he spat as he ran, his face twisting with disgust

He drew his twin swords and while he was still a dozen feet away, I cast my mind to the Font of Space in preparation of Blinking away. But, after I pierced the veil of the Font and began to draw its power into me, the wizard moved his hand in a cutting motion across his body. Suddenly, I felt the power from the Font cut off from me, as if a wall had been built between me and the Font, blocking the power of the Arcane Realm from entering into our own. I could still sense my spell on the other side of the barrier, and strained with my mind to pull it through. I had the sense that the barrier before me was malleable, something I could contest, if only my spell had more power behind it.

Then, my mind returned fully to the Material Realm, as it would have had I cast the spell successfully, but I had not teleported away, and Fanos had traveled two yards in the time I’d spent casting. With no time to cast Blink again, I jumped backward, and reached to the Font of Air to aid my leap with Wind Jump. I flew back a dozen feet, out of Fanos’ reach and during my flight could see that the wizard attempted to counter my spell once more, but before he could complete the gesture, I’d already drawn the power into our realm.

Ha, not so fast it seems! I taunted him in my head.

I landed gracefully—for me—and turned to run. In my haste, I never canceled my concentration on Wind Jump, and was pleased to find that the sustained wind that followed the launching gust aiding my escape. I ran on into the woods, quickly outpacing the lightly armored Fanos that followed. I felt fifty pounds lighter, and each step carried me half as much further as normal. When boulders got in my path, I could leap up three feet as easily as I could normally jump one, and continue on unimpeded. As the rocky clearing returned to dense brush, I risked a glance behind to see, far in the distance, Fanos still in pursuit.

Shoot, Fanos detected me from my active spell last time, and it seems the wizard noticed when I cast one this time.

I released my hold on Wind Jump, and cast Mage Armor. While he could possibly track me from the spell, he could also still see me, so it was worth the risk to further my lead on the man. Once he fell out of sight in the denser woods, I relinquished the spell and ran on, heart pounding, but still full of adrenaline.

After a while, I stopped running.

Why am I running? This reset is shot. I don't want to die, but that would honestly be more pleasant than this terrifying flight through the forest.

For the first time, I considered the possibility of ending my own life to exit that iteration of the day early. I'd died many times beyond count, most times via squashing.

I'd like it to be painless but... What if I tried something I shouldn't?

I found a clear patch obscured on all sides from falling debris, and laid low. Once settled, I cast my mind to the Arcane Realm.

The wizard didn't see the spell until it was cast, so I should be safe to try this—until the attempt itself becomes unsafe.

Standing before the Font of Air, I began to form the spell I'd dubbed Gust. I'd formed it by applying some new ineffable understanding of the Font. I'd taken the spell Slow Fall, which induced a strong updraft capable of arresting the fall of three non-donkey individuals, and restricted the area of the effect while maintaining its magnitude. This change was not that extraordinary, but then I had taken the ability to redirect the effect from my Gale spell, and added it to this spell, creating a whole new spell, with different default parameters and an extra control effect from the original Slow Fall.

That shouldn't have worked.

I cycled through each of my Air spells, beginning the casting without actually drawing the power, trying to pick out something new I could recognize in the chaos that was sorcery. When nothing presented itself, I focused on the area of effect change from Slow Fall to Gust, swapping through the two to get an understanding on how they differed.

Once I'd felt I'd gotten a grasp of what I'd done—something I don't think I could even put into words—I went to the Font of Fire. To cast a Firebolt, I can only control one aspect of the spell, and that is how much power I allow to flood into the ball of flame before I throw it. Eventually I hit the upper limit of what my proficiency with the Font and the nature of the spell allowed, and I have to release the spell and throw the Firebolt.

If I draw power too long, It feels like I'm trying to stuff one last shirt into an overstuffed bag. What if I tried to apply the area of effect modification? Could I draw more power into the spell?

So, I tried. All the warnings my mother ever gave echoed in the part of my brain not focused on the task.

I carved the shape of Firebolt into the Font with my Will, but as I did, I tried to increase the area of the spell's effect as I had with Slow Fall—only in reverse.

To say it was hard is an understatement. It was like trying to write a novel using a quill at the end of a ten foot pole, only the ink, quill, pole, and paper were all invisible, and you only have a crude understanding of what a letter was, let alone how to spell or form a sentence.

Not at all confident I'd succeeded in my task, I completed the spell and drew the power into our realm. The power came.

And came

And came.

Instead of flowing through my arm and into my palm, it ran through me. Flames formed around my entire body and then—I think, it's hard to say exactly—inside my body. After that, I don't remember, and I don't want to.

I only wrote what I did to keep a record of my experiments. I've found I could tamp down on reliving the pain if I focus hard on ignoring it, but my skin and chest still burned faintly by recounting the experience.