The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

“Yes. As I understand it, it came from an undead giant that was blown apart by a tank. Someone went out and harvested the femur and brought it back here. They still see it at the walls over by old Smithtown, using some fused skeletons for a makeshift leg.”

I eyed the thing again. “That’s definitely one of the big true Jotuns. Good material. Why didn’t they use it?”

“No affinity to it. It’s been Cleansed multiple times, but the Staff rejects our people. Given it doesn’t work as an Implement for us, no one bothered to make it a Weapon.”

It was long and pretty straight, polished down to be thick enough for gripping, with a somewhat thicker base than the normal spike, and almost mace-like protruding knobs for the head, so definitely looking like a leg bone.

It was also a QL 35+ material, a Storm Jotun leg bone...

“It’s partially fossilized,” I noted. “That giant was dead for a long time...”

“Nobody could figure out where it came from, and even the Indian tribes we talked to had no stories about it. The Shroudlord must have dredged the skeleton up out of somewhere.”

I hefted it... it was not light, at least as heavy as oak, and I wasn’t that strong to start with. I’d be getting better soon enough, however... and there were things to help with that, given a bit of time.

I could feel the resonance as soon as I laid hands on it. They’d done fair to average work on making it an Implement, but there was no rejection to me...

“I’ll take it. It’s responding to me being Shroudborn, I think.” I picked it up, hefted in in my hands, and flexed my arm, making a face. “I really have to start working out more...”

“Are you sure about that?” Initiate Hugo the Bleached said, and I nodded. I could make a really nice Weapon out of this thing... given time, and Levels.

“A secondary request.” He turned to look at me as he closed up the armory, lifting an eye. “I seem to have been designated a Shroud-tied Witch as well, and am Ringbound.” His eyes naturally fell to Einz. “My Ring is my spellbook. As I don’t have any other contacts, would it be permissible to look at your spellbooks and copy from them?”

“This...” He was hesitant, until I popped up my Darts, and then Sanctified them right in front of him. He blinked at the display of holy magic. While it was possible for almost anyone to use some of the spells Aligned with Good, using the Feats absolutely required a Good soul. There was no way around it.

“In addition, I have a Pure Soul and won’t be affected by the Taint from reading some of these books. I can skim through them, derive what knowledge is worthwhile from them, and simply lay it out in languages that won’t be so harmful to read and use. I am fluent in Demonic, Diabolic, Necrus, and Aklo, so I won’t have to use magic to translate and make the effect even worse.”

His jaw opened and closed for a moment, looking at me in astonishment. “Shroudborn truly are unusual,” he finally managed to get out.

“I believe it has more to do with having an annoyingly strong Bloodline. I certainly didn’t choose those as foundational languages.” He could only nod agreement at that. “Consider it an investment for the future. I can’t do it now, but I will absolutely return and can work on it in my down time.”

He considered that, looking at me. “Can I get an Oath on that?” he finally asked hesitantly, not sure if he would be offending me.

“Certainly,” I replied promptly. “Is on Sylune’s Name acceptable?”

He looked immensely gratified. “The Queen of Silver Magic is most certainly acceptable in this instance!” he agreed in relief. “While what we have on hand is not the equal of a guild or one of Her temples, we should have all the basics covered from I to III.”

“Excellent.” I turned to Sir Pellier. “You may stay while I study, or you can go visit the Shrine. I can find you there.”

He just nodded and headed back the way we’d come.

-------

Hugo the Bleached showed me to a table in the corner, and went off to fetch some weighty books.

Weighty, because the pages were made of gold foil over thin sheets of wood!

“Impressive,” I acknowledged, “and a bit extravagant. Why not lambskin, or cowhide?” I asked him, as I turned over the first page of the first Libraim he set down for me. Cantrip collection, I should barely need it... although there might be some specialized ones in here I didn’t have.

The book had plenty of Wards and Seals on it, but they seemed linked to the local Wards, and had been rendered inert for now.

“Wear and tear. We noted that fraying started, and ink dissolution, among the spells commonly chosen as references for Scroll-making, and the Rituals. Given how long the books could be used and how many times they might be referred, it was judged better to do the job right once and have it endure for centuries.”

I noted the clean lines of the writing, Assay’d it at a glance. “Excellent typography. Doesn’t have a human feel to it. Rockborn?” I asked politely.

“The Dwarves are the best at working with metal, and strong advocates of Harse. One of their better goldsmiths did this for us at a nominal fee,” he confirmed.

I had to smile. “You paid for him making the tools and runestamps necessary to make this book. He could then scribe dozens more for nothing but his time. It was a great deal for him.”

Initiate Hugo the Bleached looked somewhat thoughtful at that, and smiled wryly. “Ah, dwarves will get the best of any matter involving gold,” he said fatalistically.

“True. From a magical standpoint, it helps spread the knowledge of these spells wider and farther by having someone who can make the books available. Sylune would hardly be displeased, unless the maker starts selling to the morally deficient.”

“I have the feeling that if I were to make inquiries, I would find he is making regular copies of this to the adherents of Uruth!” he managed to laugh.

“The Lord of Wizards would certainly make use of lesser hands to do the dirty work,” I acknowledged, and he slowly nodded. Any form of manual labor that could be pawned off was generally done so by the elitist and intellectual snobs of the God of Magic, who pretended to be above philosophical differences on the use of magic and claimed their god was only concerned about magic itself.

Since magic was hugely affected by the Alignments, that would be utter stupidity, but the dumb bought it, and brought a lot of money the Uruthar’s way for dubious Casting, which was pretty much the point. Wagemages and sellspells were common ways to describe them, with goldstaves being a bit more insulting.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Church of Trose was very happy to take advantage of the proclivities of the wizards of Uruth...

-----

A minor spell to create a zephyr, another to quench an area in water... there were four specialized Cantrips, basically devoted applications of Prestidigitation or other Cantrips worked out by some smart fellow.

I Wrote them into my Ring, and started on the next few books.

As I had expected, the foundation of all these Wizardry spells were sorcerous Bloodline spells, written down, copied out, and redressed to their fundamentals. There were only three other spells in written form that did not come from Bloodlines or were adaptations of Divine or Natural magic, as the style of the writing deviated wildly from the others.

All were devoted variants of Detect I, where the range and duration were increased slightly by devoting the full spell to the target from memorization, instead of at the moment of Casting.

I came upon the page for Shards, and just lifted an eye at its simplicity. There were no Bloodlines that had Shards, and it wasn’t a divine spell, purest arcane magic at its finest.

It didn’t have the alternative Casting choices worked into it... it was one Shard, plus one for every two levels past One, up to five. That was it.

Huh. No wonder mine looked so impressive.

Even with information sharing and a lot of people, breaking new ground on spells was a thing that took time. The Power of Ten had baked in the Archmage’s knowledge of magic, which ostensibly came from a society that had used and refined spells for thousands, or tens of thousands, of years. A few decades wasn’t enough time to make a significant impact on a pool of knowledge that literally took geniuses to improve on.

The DC’s to make new spells from scratch were quite something, after all...

“Do you have the ink and archival paper for making a spell page?” I inquired calmly.

Initiate Hugo was watching patiently from the side, half dozing, as my quiet perusal of the pages was hardly eventful. My question snapped open his eyes.

“We keep a few pages of Scroll-worthy paper and basic spellbooks around,” he admitted warily. “Why would you need them?”

I pointed at the Shards spell. “You’ve only got a third of this spell here.”

He blinked, and looked at it. “Shards? Are you serious?”

“Yes.” I continued carefully cycling the pages over, I was in a section devoted to combat magic. “Ah, Energy Grasp, the same. You only have the lightning variant here, and without the full-round casting variant.... Only the Ice version of the Elemental Orb I, too...”

I watched his face working out of the corner of my eye. “You... have a better version of these? Without raising Valence?” he had to ask.

I nodded slowly. “I imagine such improved battle magic would be worth a considerable amount of money?” I had to ask.

“An improved basic battle spell that even an apprentice could use?” His eyes were dancing. “That could be worth an immense amount of money, Miss Traveler!”

I nodded as I continued flipping pages. “I am not greedy, but I am not going to ignore the amount of money I can earn from doing this, either, as that money will simply go to others.” He grimaced and nodded, despite himself.

“I am not yet skilled enough to create Bloodbonded ink, but I will do so in the future. I will see to it that the Ivory Scepters of Harse are charged only a nominal fee for this, as I will with the other church-affiliated orders of the gods of Good. I can instead make the master spell available to the Orders, for a more significant fee, and a share of the income generated off them.”

“At that time, I will be happy to put you in contact with my superiors,” he agreed seriously.

“I will ask around for how much to overcharge goldstaves for,” I winked at him, and he smiled despite himself. Naturally the elitists would crawl all over the idea of an improved low Valence battle magic spell. I would be able to make money until I didn’t feel like it, send master copies to the Churches, and collect fees from them once they took over the copying business.

Less reliance on this girl’s background. I sighed. I really was going to have to go to that home address, wasn’t I?

Plans always in motion... maybe after tonight, and I got my new Staff started...