Icarus Awakens

The library of Roost’s Peak was built off of the main road that threaded its way from outside the mountain, through the walls, to end at the foot of a small keep. The stern center of the city did not contain the books itself, though the fort did look out over the central square where the library was shelved. After making sure there was enough water, food, and rugs for Hunter, Daniel had set off the next morning for the blocky building. He should have thought of seeking out the library as soon as he’d arrived, but Daniel had death threats, predatory wyverns, and a girlfriend to hold his attention.

Surprisingly, people were sitting on the stone tables when the Artificer entered. Hunter’s faltering omniscience hadn’t exposed any auras in the building and he’d expected the library to be as empty as the one in Hagain. There were far fewer people here, but on the other hand, those people didn’t have much to do when there wasn’t a monster attack. Only a quarter of the city’s garrison was needed to fully man the ballista, and advancement aside reading could still provide entertainment.

After making sure Claire wasn’t among the readers, he fully stepped into the building. Unlike Lograve’s house, the interior of the building better accommodated the rows of bookshelves built around stone reading tables. All of the furniture was stone, even the chairs. Again, Daniel marveled at the seamless construction.

“Who are you?” a voice called from his peripheral vision. They sounded like they had caught Daniel sneaking around in their backyard. The aura of the speaker, a male avianoid wearing a light fabric overcoat, wasn’t red, so the animosity wasn’t directed at him specifically.

“I’m, uh, Daniel.”

“I’ve never seen you here before. Regardless, there is little here for Totem Warriors. Please leave.”

This again, Daniel sighed internally. Taking off the necklace might help the confusion, but he wouldn’t. Even stashing it in his pouch felt wrong, to say nothing of the fact that removing what was presumed to be the Focus of his Totem Warrior powers from his person could disable his Regeneration and talon hands.

“I’m an Artificer.” Daniel tried to keep his tone even despite the rude welcome. He held up his phone. “See?”

The other man’s eyes narrowed. “Artificer, eh? Then you would know how long it takes to construct level one equipment with resources on an equivalent level, with no affixes or altering powers?”

“I’m a new Artificer.” He tried to smile, but the spectacles this librarian was wearing made the pupils ridiculously dilated. The librarian was also older, sterner, and had an air of unironic hawkishness. The fact that he didn't seem to recognize Daniel despite last night's celebrations either meant he was messing with him, or rarely left the building.

“A new, level two Artificer?” There was a balance of confusion and suspicion in the librarian now. Despite both keeping their voices low, the handful of readers in the library had started listening. The eyes of a woman wearing robes with a torch emblazoned on the back stood up.

“Oh, I know that guy,” she said. “He’s the one doing Claire Elsemar.” A withering glare from the librarian returned her to her book before she could confirm Daniel's identity.

“I don’t need a library card, do I?” Daniel ventured after an awkward silence had fallen. The librarian had just been staring at him with beady eyes.

“Show me.” The librarian’s voice had the tone of an instructor asking their student to write out the work on a difficult math problem they’d already solved.

Alright, so Heroes get quips and Arcanists get lecterns? The more I meet people the more they seem to be just stereotypes of their class. Well, not all of them I guess. Daniel’s insight into the librarian didn’t tell him what he wanted though. “Show you, uh?”

“An Artificer ability. It has been some years but I recall the common low level ones.”

That was a problem. Of Daniel’s Artificer abilities, most were combat oriented. Moment of Clarity wasn’t, but he doubted the librarian could sense time stopping. Unless he could, and in that case, Daniel would be so terrified he’d just run out of the building. “I’d need to attack for most of them, but there is, um, one that, uh.” That was another unsettling thing. The eyes seemed to magnify just a little whenever he um’d or uh’d. “It could still be seen as hostile? It doesn’t do damage.”

“Use it on the upstart Ms. Glendare then.” The librarian extended a talon towards the woman who had spoken earlier.

“Hey,” she protested. Another glare from the librarian silenced her.

In this place, the librarian seemed regal in the deference given to him. He was unidentifiable though couldn’t be higher than level three. Still, the way ‘Ms. Glendare’ shrunk made it seem like Kob or Tlara was the one doing the glaring. At the very least she wouldn’t attack Daniel while so affixed.

With only a thought and a decent amount of mana, Daniel marked the robed woman’s weaknesses for all to see. A bright orange light crowned her head as smaller clusters illuminated the spacing between ribs that could more easily reach the heart. One of the librarian’s eye ridges raised its way out of the magnified frame of his lenses. “That is no Totem Warrior ability, it is true. Though I struggle to place this ability among those I know of Artificers. Regardless, you may dismiss the effect.”

“I, u-“ he bit off the word before the librarian could react. “I can’t. It only lasts a minute though.”

“Great,” the other patron complained, even though the orange aura on her head was somewhat flattering when combined with the torch symbol.

“Most interesting. And you are the source of the detection power that foiled the latest wyvern attack.” It wasn’t a question. The librarian blinked pointedly and coughed. “Unidentification. I can see your level and class, but your attributes are hidden, among other things. One such as yourself shouldn’t be able to hide this from someone above your level.”

Daniel chose to ignore the fact that he’d just been subject to a power, perhaps even Identify Creature, and shrugged. “It’s annoying for me too. I have a power that gathers knowledge but a lot of it is unidentified. You don’t have anything that could fix that, do you?”

“I could try.” The librarian said, pulling his hands out of the sleeves of his coat. Meanwhile, the orange light on Glendare faded but her ears remained perked up.

“Oh wait, sorry. I just remembered, it told me I need level ten identification to reverse it. That’s not as hard to find as it sounds, is it?” Everyone did look at him when he said that.

The librarian, who had eventually introduced himself as Kelwyn, had attempted to dispel the unidentification after assuring Daniel he must have been mistaken. That hadn’t worked, but Kelwyn was confident someone around level five with the proper ability could remove the effect. His repeated assurances that ‘level ten undentification’ didn’t exist did little to reassure Daniel. Once that awkwardness had been handled, Kelwyn asked what topics he was interested in reading. Despite coming to the library for that express purpose, the question threw Daniel. Should he ask for material on basic topics that would reveal his unfamiliarity with the world, or try to struggle through more advanced fields? To that point, it was hard to know what would be regarded as appropriate for him to be reading and what wouldn’t be.

The hope had been that Daniel could go about the library and pick out what he wanted. Kelwyn’s bearing made it clear that was an impossibility. Well, let’s just go broad and let the librarian choose what’s appropriate, he eventually decided. “History,” Daniel said after a good thirty seconds of silence passed.

“History?” Kelwyn asked slowly. “That is a broad topic.”

“Early history. Before the Crest?”

“Hmm,” the librarian grunted with disapproval. “That is a subject plagued with as much fiction as fact. Take a seat.”

Libraries of the Octyrrum could greatly benefit from the organizational structure of his world. That was Daniel’s impression at least. Kelwyn moved from one bookshelf to another as he collected a half dozen books. Still, it didn’t take too long for them to be deposited in front of the Artificer. They were each the size of a novel with a title font suggesting density.

“You will return these to the front desk when you are done,” Kelwyn prophesized, then left Daniel alone at the desk. The silence of the library, broken by turning pages, was the only thing reminiscent of the Earth counterparts.

Even the books were different. The bubbly text that he could somehow read flowed across each page with roughly the same sentence and paragraph structure at least. The pages were bound with rough string tied to the spine instead of adhesive. Daniel thought of the surviving skab glue in the house and wondered if that could be used to replicate books from his world.

Anyways, he was here to read and possibly advance. Skimming through the books, he settled on one that transcribed the accounts of a Paladin of the Torch. Both Paladin and Torch drew his eyes. The former was a class he hadn’t seen yet, but the latter was sitting nearby. The symbol seemed to represent the knowledge god of the Octyrrum, and a Paladin of that church should have the most accurate view of the past. That was Daniel’s hope, at least.

He’d always been a fast reader. Quick Mind improved this, allowing him to chew through chapters without losing any information in his haste. For a feature that didn't seem to help much in combat, it made reading a breeze. In this case, it was allowing him to quickly pick apart the tales of the Paladin named Artruz. The contention between the gods Lograve’s books had hinted at underplayed the reality of the Octyrrum just before the Crest. Likewise, his Encyclopedia could have gone into far more detail about the Grafting, given the role it played. At its core, the Accounts of Artruz were crusade tales.

Before the Crest, each of the seven gods commanded a Realm, as they still did today. The basic structure of the world was the same, six Realms surrounding the seventh. Hourglass, the god of time ruled over the center, while the others took one of the peripheral wedges.

Alert: Crude World Map has been updated with new information.

Huh. Daniel looked at the cheerily drawn map. Each Realm was now labeled with the appropriate gods following the pattern described in the book. The one his flag stood in belonged to the god of Transmutation, Hammer. That didn’t mean too much, which he learned as he continued to read. The parts before the crusades were disjointedly referenced, but Daniel pieced things together towards the halfway point in the book. The Grafting hadn’t immediately caused war, but it had provided the spark. Mortal kind on the Octyrrum had only been human in the beginning. Along with humans were the lesser beasts his world called animals, and the monsters.

Classes and levels had been granted to mankind by the gods, each sponsoring their own “ideal” that built the foundation of the earliest classes. Paladin was one of these and Artificer was not, confirming Daniel's suspicion that the classes had developed over time. Each god’s class was spread out over the Octyrrum as information and people crossed peacetime boundaries.

Societies developed, and the gods became more distant. More hands off, perhaps, to allow humanity to develop along its own course. Religion was still central to society as worship was to daily life. The problems started when the first human hit level seven and Tyrant became the first class to develop outside the original purview of the gods. Unlike the power evolution Daniel had undergone, the Tyrant class evolution could only be reached by a complete class evolution requiring the correct circumstances. They usually developed in times of sudden turmoil, or when the population of a region lost faith in their leadership. It also couldn’t be intentionally triggered like the Builder evolution of the Craftsman class. The first Tyrant had spawned in the god of illusion’s Realm and raised an empire free of divine influence.

This Tyrant eventually fell, but through its existence, it had revealed powers beyond those originally given by the gods. New classes were discovered, new technology invented, and eventually, new races were welcomed into the world. The Accounts of Artruz did not explain this or the Grafting in great detail, but did mention the topic. According to the accounts, the Grafting was a process a cabal of transmutation specialists called the Illustrious used to create new life. This discovery was accidental, a byproduct of their experiments on the fundamental rules that governed all of magic. The first reference was written so matter of factly that Daniel had to flip back a couple of pages to make sure his feature wasn’t making him misinterpret the book. The old faction had grown so powerful they were eventually able to graft souls into monsters and warp them into new mortal races. To some this was heresy and defiance of the will of the Octyrrum itself. To others, it was just another front in the war for mastery of magic and the world.

Then, something broke. Whether it was the Grafting making people out of monsters, or level nine classes playing god themselves, something brought the Crest into existence. Monsters, a mostly tamed threat at the time, became insatiable hordes near the border of chaos that pressed against the limits of the Octyrrum. Worse, the gods had fallen silent. Normally a distant guiding force of each Realm that provided direct guidance in the direst of circumstances, they had abandoned their people during the hour of greatest need. Completely directionless and suspicious of everyone, the nations of the Octyrrum fought against themselves as much as the encroaching Crest. This was the time of Artruz, Paladin of Torch, born after the greatest calamity to ever grace the Octyrrum. Daniel thought of the dragon that awaited the survivors of this region and empathized.

The book ended with the Paladin’s death at a battle near the border between Torch and Hourglass’ domain. The Crest had driven all to the center of the Octyrrum, where they found that the seventh Realm had not succumbed to internal politics. Instead of offering aid, it intended to bar any who attempted to cross into their territory. Artruz led a desperate charge into Hourglass’ border regions, sacrificing his life and those of his companions to allow some to slip through and survive. Through them, his tales had as well.

Daniel closed the book and looked at one of the windows. Surprised, he found there was still light in the day. He’d read, and at times reread, about four hundred pages of small text in a couple of hours and understood everything. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the tales. As Kelwyn had warned, when you went this far back, things could get misinterpreted or misrepresented. The tome didn't seem to have persisted thousands of years on its own, and by the compiler's admission in the forward these accounts were second-hand at best. At least both the Collapse and the Grafting appeared in other books he skimmed, suggesting those two elements were at least more fact than fiction. As he sat and reflected on his discoveries, his phone buzzed.

You have accomplished Feat: Study.

This has unlocked potential for growth. Two Advancement Potential have been awarded. You may assign them with Function: Settings in addition to expending potential through normal methods.

It had taken a couple of hours instead of a few minutes, but this method of advancement was far safer. Though, if Lograve was to be believed there would be severe diminishing returns. Well, he could worry about that later. For now, Daniel had four attributes to get to level two. He picked up the next book and kept reading from the beginning.

A sodden afternoon met Daniel three books into the six. Despite continuing to read, he’d only earned the initial two advancement potential. Most of the others in the library had left already and there was a foreboding that he shouldn’t stay here much longer. It could have been that he felt guilty for leaving Hunter alone for so long, or the stalking Kelwyn that had started circling the library, growing ever closer to his table.

There would be time to read the others, or explore new topics. Compared to the pace he’d read textbooks in high school, using Quick Mind was like beaming the knowledge into his head and the feature was just level two. The thought of what it would do at level nine was inspiring and terrifying at the same time.

The walk back soaked Daniel as rain fell. Focused on dodging between stone awnings and lost in thought over where to spend his advancements, Daniel didn’t notice Hunter’s aura moving until he reached the house. There were two others in the room as well. He relaxed when Claire’s name appeared with one. Hey Hunter, who’s in the house?

Not now. The ringcat seemed aggravated. He opened to the door to find Claire and the draconoid from last night sitting on chairs and hiding grins. Hunter was slowly but purposefully chasing something on the floor. It looked like a mouse.

“And where have you been?” Claire asked with mock sternness.

“Reading. Uh, what’s going on?” There was a bit of unease in Daniel’s assessment of the situation, even if Claire had been joking. Most of it was due to how close the draconoid was sitting to her.

“I was on my way to check on Hunter when Parduc caught me on the street. There’s something he’s been meaning to ask you so I thought we should wait here together and give your ringcat some exercise.”

Hunter put a massive paw on the mouse, only for it to scurry away from under it. Hunter growled in murderous irritation. “Claire, is that an illusion?” Daniel asked after seeing this.

“Maybe.”

“Hunter,” Daniel groaned. “What are you doing?”

Hunting, came the mental reply.

“It’s not real.” To the other two in the room, there seemed no mental roar that followed, but they did see the ringcat turn towards Claire. Daniel quickly stepped between them. “So, what did you, uh, want to know?” And what does this draconoid want with me?

“You came from Hagain, right?” the slightly burly voice of Parduc asked. Claire had carried her normal mischievousness, but this man was serious. “Did you ever meet Commander Murdon?”

“Oh yeah! Do you know him?” That wasn’t nearly as bad as the questions he was afraid would be asked. That didn’t change the conspiratorial nature of Parduc’s next question. He’d even stood, edged around the walls to avoid Hunter, and checked that the door was closed before asking.

“Do you think it’s possible he’s become a Tyrant?”

Daniel looked at Claire in surprise. She nodded, imploring him to answer. Concern was in her eyes too, now that the question was out there. “What? No, I…” Could he be sure? Daniel had only just learned of the concept of that class evolution but he knew it was possible. Murdon didn’t seem like an evil overlord, but the draconoid was at a higher level than him. If Murdon was a Tyrant, would he be able to tell? The more he thought about it, the more possible it seemed. “Why do you think he’s one?”

Parduc was about to answer when the door slammed open. Claire backed up to the far wall while the draconoid reached for a hammer on his belt. Both seemed ready to fight, until vines the size of constrictors snaked into the room to herald Kob’s presence. The gestalt had recovered all of their strength and then some, growing beyond their original size now that they had reached level five. “Emergency,” the voice boomed as thunder to accompany the rain.

Daniel had been debating what to spend his advancement from studying on, but after Kob had almost broken down his front wall to grab him he figured he couldn’t sit on the points and made the obvious choice.

Your Endurance is now 16! You have gained Ability: Construct Shield.

-

???

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Construct Shield (Ability, Endurance, Spell, Domain: Transmutation, Incantation, Level: 2):

You possess the Power to rapidly construct barriers from nearby, unattended material. This ability requires a small amount of Mana, scaling with the size of the material to be affected and inversely scaling with your Intelligence. You must also utter Incantation: Bulwark when activating this ability. This is a Magical Ability that does not function in an area of Magical Suppression.

…

Tak’s body was eerily reminiscent of Hunter’s after the devil root core. The injuries were not from an explosion but from many cuts and crushing injuries. The side of one of his legs was torn off, and the skin showing from plucked feathers was white with blood loss. Yet, he was still alive.

Daniel could only look at Tak for a few seconds before his stomach threatened to empty itself. Tak didn’t need his attention in any case, there were three healers around the man. “What happened?” he asked no one in particular. Kob couldn’t answer, the gestalt couldn’t fit in the small room in the keep.

None of those working on the Totem Warrior responded. Tak himself was not so limited by the task of keeping himself alive. Before he fell unconscious, he was able to whisper, “Mine collapse.”