Dear Spellbook,

It’s been a while since I caught you up on events. We’ve made some progress, and things are looking up.

Riloth 19th the 1302nd-1446th

With renewed hope and vigor, we set about preparing for Bearskin’s eventual Bonding of the group to the Dahn. Bearskin began constructing a mental vault under Levar’s and my own tutelage.

His people used the mental vault to construct new Bonds as they called them. The simple Bond Bearskin uses to stick items together is the basic ability all of his people know. They gain the ability in their teenage years, at which point they can continue to develop their abilities or focus on other pursuits. Some chose both, but the construction and mastering of new Bonds was a skill that took a large amount of time to master and refine. Bearskin had instead devoted himself to being a warrior to better defend his people, but it seems that there were also a number of warriors who incorporated more advanced Bonds into their fighting style.

Once he had created a mental vault, he would be able to start experimenting with Bonds. Unlike sorcerers, his people got an innate sense of understanding of their Font. Also, apparently unlike weird pseudo-Primal sorcerers of a Font that ought not to exist.

He used some pages from you to write down all the details of the process. With your help, he was able to relive the memory of another’s Binding to the Totem, and even gain a sense of the magic at work. We decided it would be best if he saved the recollection of his own Binding until he had his mental vault, at which point he could preserve the memory with applications of Will. Levar was adept at the processes, keeping a large stock of preserved memories himself.

It was common knowledge on Bearskin’s island that the process required magical tattoos. He knew the shape of the tattoos, bearing them all over his own body, but he didn’t know what reagents were required to make the ink. I showed Levar the pages from Leslie’s spellbook outlining the manufacture of spellform ink as a place to start his research. Trish would be the one to ink the tattoos, if she ever came out of her room that is.

After the meeting, I headed out to test my first fourth tier spell, reflecting on the accomplishment.

By Stormcaller standards, I would still be a Journeyman for some time. To be a Master Stormcaller one needed to cast fifth-tier magics of either tradition, be able to maintain concentration on more than one spell, and be able to join in on joint spell casting. Most of that was still far beyond me, but the Tower had lower standards. In true bureaucratic fashion, the ability to cast forth tier spells was all that was needed to achieve the rank. Now, I'm sure they'd not accept a fourth-tier sorcery spell as meeting the criteria, but I expected my wizardry to catch up shortly. Technically, I'd be a Master Wizard at eighteen, though I had twenty-two years of life to my name. I wonder if that's a record? Most wizards peak at fourth tier magic in their forties or fifties, only true prodigies progressing beyond that.

Am I a prodigy? No, I don't think so. I'd go so far as to call myself gifted, but I've had a few things fall just right to give me a leg up, though if when we get out of here, I am going to need to lie low lest a target gets painted on my back.

Outside the Dahn, I went to the Arcane Realm, and drew power from the Font of Space, allowing my instincts to shape the magic into the new form. The power gathered much slower than I expected and it took nearly a minute for the spell to form completely.

This is different. I reflected as the power gathered.

The first time I'd cast it had been faster, though it had resulted in my traveling to some region of pure space. This time how, I became aware of all the possible destinations as the spell built up. Just like in that space, I could sense all the connections to me, and unfortunately, they were lacking. I could Teleport to anywhere within a few thousand feet, which was nothing to sneeze at, and to any place one of your pages lay. With this sense, I knew the direction of each page and had a vague understanding of it's surroundings, more than enough to recall the exact location if I'd been there before. I tried teleporting back to town, but no place worked, no matter how familiar.

So, I teleported into the library, sending Levar tumbling back as I manifested on the table before him.

"Sorry!"

I tried a few more times, but couldn't manage to teleport anywhere without some sort of connection.

"I guess that's what teleportation circles are for," I mused to Levar as we sat in the library after my efforts. "Do you know how they work?"

"In practice, though not in detail," he said, a little sad he couldn't provide me with a thorough explanation. "Wizards create spells that somehow make two locations identical from a Special perspective. I suspect the method is similar to that stable field technique you used to create Call Lightning, but instead of creating a region that is suitable for magic, it creates a highly unique magical signature. If more than one of these regions exists, they could then be teleported to freely. The spells take a long time to cast and require magical reagents to stay active long enough to be used, so their use is limited, though the Tower maintains a few permanent teleportation circles."

"You're too hard on yourself, that's plenty of detail. Can we make one of these spells?" I asked.

"Maybe? But it wouldn't help us go anywhere, as you'd need to set the circle at your destination first."

We didn't make any progress on the teleportation circle front, but we did settle on the name Greater Teleport, though we’d need to sort out the whole destination thing before the moniker could be accurate. For now, it was just a handy way to return to the Dahn if I found myself outside it near a reset.

I finally decided to give mapping the path to Force Pulse another go, and most of my Will during these resets when toward testing that, and reinforcing my mental defenses. Occasionally I took a visit to Ren or Abby to expose more weaknesses. As time went on and my proficiencies improved, Ren got a little too flirty for my liking, and I actually preferred visiting Abby.

It's a weird world.

I also began work on creating a stable field for the Font of Force. I’ll save you the misery of a long explanation. It didn't work. I couldn’t figure it out at all. Leslie didn’t have any research notes on verbal and somatic components, so I had to start from the ground up, and on the ground, I remained. Well, sort of. I could still literally fly.

I spent a lot of time flying. I tried flying to Edgewater, Crossroads, Orinqth, and Landing a few times. I knew the distances were too great, but I was worth an attempt. The wilderness between each place and the Dahn was mostly empty, populated only with the occasional fortified farm or village. During one of these flights, a giant hawk came at me from above, taking a huge chunk out of my leg with its beak.

Instinctively, I cast Gust on it, the spell manifesting with barely a thought and sending him down to a bone-crushing death on the plains below. The casting of Gust forced me to break my concentration on my own flight spell, and I plummeted to the ground, but as soon as the bird had crashed, I cast Slow Fall on myself to see me safely down. The casting of Slow Fall felt almost glacial as I fell, compared to the quick casting of Gust.

That’s weird. Slow Fall should cast fasting since it targets me.

When I landed, I bandaged my wound, and cast Gust again, only to find it was not as fast as it had been while up in the air. Next, I cast Fly, and then tried casting Gust. Once more, the spell formed almost effortlessly, requiring less time and Will.

Could it be?

I entered my vault while standing, something that had long since become routine, and flipped through your avatar inside until I got back to my memories of my original stable field spell for Lighting. Over the next twenty minutes, I reconstructed the spell template from the memory, and once it was done, I cast the stable field and stepped inside. Once there, I cast the Lightning spell my mother had taught me. The spell cast as normal, requiring the same Will and with no appreciable difference in speed.

“Well, that's now what I was hoping for,” I said to myself.

Next, I went through all of my spells and found only my sorcerous Wind magic to be slightly affected by the field. The spells came slightly faster.

“What does this mean?”

Next, I cast Fly, and tried to cast Lightning Bolt without the somatic or verbal components. It didn’t work, BUT, it didn’t completely fail either.

I grabbed a potion to get enough Will to teleport home but stopped myself to count before I took it.

“Flood,” I cursed when I realized I’d already taken two. I’d avoided Will poisoning in the desperate flight back to save Trish, but the after-effects of the potion Levar had given to stave off the clarity overdoes had caused gastricly unpleasant side effects. Instead, I sat down and took a brief nap against a tree. When I woke I had enough Will to teleport home and look further into my latest discovery.

For the next week, this connection between Lightning and Wind consumed me, and I spent every waking hour trying to make something of it. I had theorized before that wizardry and sorcery could be used together, and this event seemed to be confirmation of a sort. Through trial and error—lots of errors, many fatal—I managed to create a weaker version of Lightning Bolt that I could cast while flying without the need for a verbal or somatic component. The spell cost the same as a normal Lightning Bolt and did less damage, but the fact that it worked at all was huge.

Bearskin threw himself into building a mental vault with the same dedication he gave to his martial training and his efforts showed in his quick results. The process took him only 7 weeks, revealing the depths of his mental discipline as it had taken Levar and I each over a year to do so—though in our defense we did it as children, but that doesn't take away anything from his accomplishment.

But, before he got deep into that, he had to test out his new ability. As he describes it, his weapon gains magical abilities of those he defeats in a true "Contest." As best as I can tell, to be considered a Contest requires both participants have some sort of mutual respect for battle and each other. Also, the fight must have no outside interference. Yes, that sounds like vague nonsense to me too, and I ostensibly worship a god of chaos. Ganik is a strange one, but one can't argue with results.

Anyway, if Bearskin wins a Contest, there's the possibility that his weapon will gain ability related to the slain foe. He had powers now from a bear, a shark, and a stone golem. The shark granted the ability to smell blood at great distances, and limited water breathing, while the bear gave him enhanced strength at all times and the ability to hibernate to heal.

Just as with his other activated abilities, the stone skin could only be used once per day. We already knew the golem granted him a limited blind sight ability able to pick up on movement, but he'd yet to really rest out the stone skin ability.

"Hit me," Bearskin said as he stood before me clad in his gray skin.

"I don't think you need that active to protect yourself from me," I replied.

He only stood patiently waiting.

"Fine," I sighed, and punched him in the chest.

Then Daulf healed my broken hand.

After that, I got to use weapons. Clubs, swords, maces, daggers, rapiers, and more, no mundane weapons in my hands could harm him. It was like battling Timothy in the early days all over again. Daulf could harm him with the strength of his attacks, but even still a sword swing that ought to sever an arm only left a deep cut.

During all of this, I had flashbacks to my Force Armor benchmark with Simon and my irritation with the man lessened a bit. There was something cathartic about wailing on someone who couldn't get hurt.

Magic hover got through his defenses just fine. Every spell I tried, save for Fling which just threw something mundane, was just as effective with the spell as without.

The ability also made Bearskin heavier. Not as heavy if he were completely made of stone, but somewhere in between. Levar then insisted on Bearskin experimenting with activating and deactivating it in motion, and made a big deal about his speed not changing.

I didn’t see the big deal, as I could fly and conjure Lightning storms from the sky. The laws of nature were more suggestions when magic is involved, and I was a little surprised Levar even cared.

Once I’d retrieved Leslie’s ink vial for Levar, his study into ink took off. He quickly made the disturbing discovery that the main ingredient in the ink was sorcerer bones. Furthermore, the wand I’d used to defeat the golems had been crafted from a sorcerer's bone as well. I felt a lot less bad about killing the cruel wizard a couple of hundred times—not that I had been feeling too bad about it anymore.

With an infinite supply of spellform ink, Levar got to work experimenting with it and looking for ways to replicate the properties Bearskin knew the tattoo ink to possess. To test the efficacy, the pair would paint sigils onto the walls of the Dahn in both the spellform ink and Levar’s latest copy. Bearskin would then place a Bond on the sigil, stick a weight to it and then the duration of the effect would be timed. Duration. The sigils were similar to runes but different in a lot of key ways. For one, filling them with Will did nothing. They were instead used to enhance the Bonds Bearskin’s people could produce in various ways. The sample sigil on the wall was meant to allow the Bond to last longer. The other key difference between sigils and runes is the process of discovery. Runes required endless trial and error to discover new ones, while the people of the Iron Vein could intuit sigils designs to some degree, just as they could discover new abilities from their Fonts through trial and error.

Slowly, Levar’s recipe improved until it surpassed the ink, eventually meeting the requirements set out by Bearskin.

Through the testing, I’d been sent out to gather magical creatures in the region, from pack rats and harpies to Abby and kobolds. The breakthrough came when I brought back some of the webs from the mage slayer spider. Utilizing this in the ink brought Levar’s to the lower threshold of acceptability, and the next day Dagmar and I slew the spider for its spinneret, which—after a few days of experimenting and a few more trips into that horrible cave—resulted in a acceptable alternative to whatever ink covered Bearskin’s body.

Trish had eventually come out of her room after a week. When she did, I caught I glimpse inside and saw that she’d thrown herself into painting and sculpting in her isolation. The stone walls of her room were latticed with intricate designs reminiscent of the carvings Roland used to cover his furniture. She’d also painted a lot of forested landscapes. The most shocking thing however, was her aura.

When she left her room, I somehow sensed that something had changed. Looking at her, something was different from before, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. When I turned to my Willsight, I saw the difference immediately. Before, her aura had been a blend of her own royal purple and my father’s rapier’s icy blue-white, the purple dominating though. Now mixed between the two, was the teal aura of her father’s weapon and the celestial it contained.

“What are you staring at?” she said with a grin.

* * *

We took a walk into the forest to talk.

“Are you doing alright?” I asked after some time of silence.

“No,” she said honestly. “But, I’m doing better.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” she began, but then a gust of wind blew up around her, and she yelled to the air with exasperation. “I wasn’t done!”

She turned to me and continued, “As I was saying, not really, but I probably should.”

“You may have failed to notice, with your face in that book all the time, but Roland and I had—” she paused, trying to think of a less painful word before settling on “—grown close. He’s a bit annoying, but once you get past that, he—well—he’s very loyal. I don’t trust easily anymore. Honestly, the reason I stuck to you was because you were so bad at lying, and it was clear you had no idea what was going on. There was no way you were going to betray me to some shady group.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

“Don’t mention it. Anyway, I don’t want to get into it all, but Uncle pointed out that had we been Pacted, Roland wouldn’t have had to sacrifice his memories of me for me.”

“How’d you take that?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Not well. But, eventually, I realized that he was right. So, we came to an understanding.”

“So you aren’t the new Chosen of Waas?”

“Ha!” she let out a loud laugh, “No. It's in everyone's best interest that we end all of this. I told him I will not serve Waas blindly as my father had, but I wasn’t against listening to what she wanted and considering it. He needed a bit more of a commitment than that, but eventually we worked out an arrangement. I would get the powers of the Pact and Bond the weapon for the duration of this situation. Afterward, we’d renegotiate. He’s expecting I’ll have some sort of change of heart and go back to my mother’s people as some sort of prophet, using the artifact as a tool to create beauty. He’s going to be disappointed. If I go back, it won’t be to create art.”

“So, what can you do with it?” I asked, deflecting from the murderous suggestion. “Aside from art?”

“Let’s find out.”

* * *

We stood in the foyer with weapons drawn. I bore a paper rapier, while Trish held her rapier in her main hand and her father’s weapon in the form of a long knife in her offhand.

A loud clap from Bearskin echoed through the hall, signaling the start of the sparring bout. I cast Fly, using the flexibility of the spell to mimic Vortex, while giving me quick access to the movement applications of my Wind magic. Trish opened by throwing her newly Bonded long knife, but as she cocked her hand back for the throw, the weapon turned into a throwing dart. I increased the flow in anticipation of the projectile, watched helplessly as the dart entered the area of my spell and continued on to strike me in the shoulder unimpeded by my Wind magic.

“I thought that would work,” Trish said as I moved to pull the dart from my ruined shoulder.

I grimaced at the pain, but was used to far worse. Before my finger reached the weapon though, it disappeared into a hazy mist and sailed back to Trish’s waiting hand.

I looked to the rapier in my hand, and then let it fall into its constituent pieces of paper, instead sending three Magic Missiles hurtling at Trish. She batted the first aside with her rapier, the next with her knife, and just before the third hit, she disappeared with a whoosh of air similar to that which accompanies my teleportation magic. She reappeared an instant later, throwing her knife turned dart as soon as she appeared.

“Bo,” I said, reaching out to block the dart with Shield, but before it had travelled half the distance between us, the weapon altered its course, shooting off to the side before turning back towards me in an attempt to circumvent my Shield.

Narrowly, I blocked the attack, but she’d followed up by throwing two ice darts, each of which swerved back and forth in the air as they flew on magically controlled currents, making them difficult to track and block. So, instead, I Blinked, appearing behind her with my back to her. I sent a blast of wind blowing behind me, sending her tumbling forward. I turned to follow up with another Magic Missile, only for her to vanish into air once more. She was gone, but the vague sense of her presence remained, and I turned to my Willsight just in time to see a diffuse blob of air with her three-toned aura moving towards me. I sent another blast of wind before me, blinding myself with my own aura temporarily, but when I restored my normal vision I saw Trish standing across the room with an irritated expression on her face. Her limited air control didn’t seem to work in her gaseous state.

I brought my paper rapier back out and we spared in a more traditional manner. She went easy on me, and I refrained from calling lightning from the sky on top of her. With the aid of the Font of The Wind for maneuvers and Buckler I was almost a half decent opponent, but I quickly bowed out so she could really test her new abilities.

Dagmar stepped in with two swords of her own. Everyone had been watching our bout and Dagmar had been eager to test herself against her friend. The two women saluted each other with their swords and then Dagmar broke out into a charge. Just as they met, Trish disappeared, turning into air, but somehow Dagmar tracked her movement and turned just in time to block the sneak attack Trish prepared with her reappearance. They traded blows back and forth, faster than I could keep track, neither landing one of the other's Mage Armor protected bodies. Dagmar was the more skilled warrior in a straight-up fight, but Trish was loaded with tricks. With each ring of contact with the rapier, the blade excused a blast of cold, chilling Dagmar's blade and weakening her grip on the weapons as they became dangerously cold.

Trish also began to change the form of her new... Well, it was a long knife, but then it became a short sword, and then a dagger, and then a sickle before returning to a knife. Let's just call it her artifact. The rapid changes three Dagmar off, and that together with her chilled hands forced the dwarf to retreat. She jumped back, and Trish threw ice darts after her as she back up. Dagmar deflected or blocked each dart, and threw her frozen swords aside before throwing back a volley of her own knives. Trish ignored the projectiles, ice armor appearing on her just before they struck. The ice explored into shards, but Dagmar was well beyond it's reach.

Trish ran at Dagmar who has picked up a pick and shield after her ranged attack. The dwarf braces herself for the charge, visible surprised at the head on tactic. When she was still a few places off Trish leapt into the air at Dagmar. Dagmar stepped to the side, letting her shield drop to take advantage of the large mistake her friend had just made in giving up the ability to maneuver. But, just as Dagmar pulled back her pick to swing, Trish took a step in midair and jumped even higher, turning in the air in an acrobatic leap until she landed behind the over extended dwarf with a paint brush held at the back of her neck.

"I win," Trish said triumphantly between heavy breaths.

* * *

Bearskin continued through all of this, steadily working to master his Primal powers. He learned to make his Bonds last longer, and then moved on to less physical Bonds.

His people could Bind people to oaths, and as he described it, this was the next step on the path to Binding ensouled artifacts. Unlike a Will oath which served as a confirmation of intent in the swearing of an oath, or in the Hardune’s case a constant check on that oath, Bearskin’s people could create Binding oaths.

On the rare occasions a ship wrecked itself on the hidden peaks beneath the waves around their island, they would rescue the sailors, allow them to repair their ship, and let them go on the condition of swearing an oath of secrecy.

Once his mental vault was complete, it only took Bearskin three weeks to learn the art. After which, he disappeared into his room to recount the evens of his own Binding with the aid of your pages. For two weeks he studied his memories, his tattoos, his weapon, and stacks of twinned sheets. Each had some insights into the magic of Bonds, and he dug in, showing scholarly inclinations I’d not expected of him.

* * *

While Bearskin studied, I did too, experimenting with the stable field element of my Wind magic. Embolden by my first success with the weak Lightning Bolt, I dove into the wizardry aspect of the task. Slowly, I stripped everything from Lightning Bolt I could to make it work in the field, but eventually I hit a wall where the spell cost twice as much as a first tier Lightning with the same general effect. I returned to the spell, and experimented further. I’d been using the spell like Vortex around myself, and shooting the lighting out at targets, but I quickly realized I was retreating old ground.

With Call Lightning, I’d had a similar problem of aiming, and the answer had been to raise the stable field up into the air. With this sorcery induced stable field, aiming didn’t seem to be an issue, but the two problems shared a solution. The lightning I summoned weakened drastically when it left the field, so putting the field around my foes seemed the best solution.

Outside the Dahn, I experimented, conjuring a third tier Dust Devil around a tree, empowering the spell with my latest insights into stable fields wrought from my work with Fly. The air around the tree burst into life as the miniature tornado grew around it. Next, I built the skeleton of a modified Lightning Bolt, and sent it into the Arcane Realm only for a moment later for a bolt of lightning to crash into the tree from a few feet away. The spell was still weak, and not the cost free activation I was hoping for, but it had gotten stronger,

For days, I struggled to make it work, modifying the spell construct, and pouring over the spell for Fly for more details. In the end, I realized that the third tier Wind spell lacked the power needed to do what I wanted. I needed to be more ambitious.

Since learning Greater Teleport, I’d found that I’d unlocked fourth tier sorcery, but my control of the magic was lacking. I’d tried casting Fly at a fourth tier, and found my control to only be slightly improved from the failed attempt on the road. The power was too great for my current level of control. But, Fly required fine-tuned control to use effectively after casting, Dust Devil and Vortex did not, and it was these spells I wished this new one to be modeled after.

The first time I cast the in progress fourth tier spell, the forest exploded. For forty feet around, branches broke from trees, shooting out in all directions from the hurricane force of the wind. The spell took a heavy mental hand to hold, but with all the means of altering the effect stripped from it, I could just manage to do so while still working to build a spell construct.

With the wind howling before me, I built the minimalist spell construct for Lightning Bolt and sent it through my bridge. Immediately, an arc of lighting appeared at the center of the spell, bursting forth to strike a nearby tree, the crack of the thunder that followed ringing out over the howl.

A smile grew on my face as I marveled at my success. The Lightning Bolt had not been without cost, and the damage was lacking, but those were now things I knew I could resolve.

Two more days of tinkering, and the fourth tier spell dubbed Storm Sphere was born. The spell created a sphere of turbulent wind in a forty foot sphere. The wind within so intense that even Bearskin struggled to move unhindered without relying on his Bond. Trish however, could now walk within it unfettered, as if strolling through a park on a sunny day.

Within the sphere, I could freely conjure bolts of Lightning with damage somewhere between Lightning and Lightning Bolt—as reported by Dagmar who sacrificed her life for the test. The bolts were most effective when cast on a target contained in the sphere, but could be sent out at foes beyond for a lessened effect.

With this, I had strong supporting evidence to my theory. Combining wizardry and sorcery was not only possible, but powerful. What other secrets along these lines lay to be discovered?

Riloth 19th the 1447th

The day after my breakthrough with Storm Sphere, Bearskin interrupted our breakfast.

“I know what must be done!” he proclaimed, bursting forth from his room.

He ushered us all to the foyer, and we all complied, eager to see this done. He did not explain, only directing Trish to begin the process of tattooing his temple. The tattoo he’d devised was seven interlocking rings inset into a larger circle, with sigils beyond. The symbol was to represent us, and the sigils were to do the heavy lifting of the magic. The tattoo had to be on our heads. Bearskin bore his on his temple, where Levar and I elected to shave my head and place it on the base of my skull where our hairline would hide it. Daulf being bald, placed his prominently on his forehead above his right eye, while Dagmar, Roland, Levar and Trish all placed theirs behind an ear. Somehow, Trish managed to tattoo herself with the aid of a mirror.

Dagmar and I chose to partake for the insurance against either of us losing our own bonds to the reset through some unforeseen event. The incident with had been scary, and not even ensouled artifacts were indestructible—not that you have anything to worry about, or that I was afraid I’d lose you again. Bearskin also believed our presence in the Bond would reinforce the intent of the connection. It was possible that connecting us all to the Dahn would simply grant us some control over it, and infer no other benefits. With Dagmar and I part of the Bond, the chance of this dropped close to zero.

Once we all had our tattoos, Daulf called the great crystal to descend down from the ceiling, and we all placed a palm on it. Without even a word, Bearskin closed his eyes, and I felt him connecting to the Font of Bonds the moment before the magic took effect.

Suddenly, I was aware of the presence of my companions in a way that belied mundane means. I closed my eyes, and still sensed them beside me in a recently familiar way.

On a hunch, I cast Greater Teleport, and seven new threads joined the thousands that lead to you and your pages. Each thread bore the color of my companion’s auras, and I sensed I could use these to teleport to them from any distance, but not only that, but that I could teleport them to me. I tried, completing the spell, but bringing Trish to me instead of me to her. I felt her fight it at first, but then relent, likely recognizing the feeling from my less powerful Teleport. And then she teleported the few feet that separated us.

“What was that for?” she asked?

“I think it worked,” was all I said.