The Runic Artist

Kiri panted, hands on her knees as sweat dripped down her face. She glared at the tree in front of her. It hadn’t done anything to her. Not really. But then, it hadn’t helped her at all either. Instead it just stood there, unmarred, despite her efforts. Her wooden daggers lay on the ground by her feet where she’d thrown them in frustration. Looking at them she rubbed her gloved hands, trying to ignore the pain of the blisters beneath. She was spared the constant itch of mana by the Mana Exclusion rune she had tucked into her belt. Was this what it would have been like for Nate she wondered? He had come from a Dead Realm, he said. A world without mana.

Before losing her Core, her Constitution had been almost twice what it was now. That hadn’t stopped her from getting blisters, but it had stopped them from lingering. She would have finished off her day, gone to bed a little sore, and woken with hands that were ready to work. It also meant she had developed calluses quickly. But her calluses were in all the wrong places. Gripping, twisting and bracing daggers was not the same as her bow, and since her Stats were now barely better than a ten year old, she was suffering. At least it wasn’t in vain.

Shadow Aligned - Dual Daggers 3 > 6

Looking at the three levels she’d gained in the Skill she was at least happy about her progress. It was a lot for one day. However it still felt slow. Before this her Skill had been at eighteen. It constantly grated on her emotionally, even if mentally she was sure in the end it would be a good thing. She would at least, at the very minimum, get a Rare Class. Of that she was sure. Beyond that though, how would she have ever dreamed of higher? Of more?

She was just some girl who lived in a cottage with her parents outside a small town in the middle of nowhere. She loved it here. Had loved growing up here. But up until now, her dreams of becoming a hero, well, they had been just that, dreams. Now, there was the possibility she could make those dreams a reality. She owed it to herself to try. To give it all she had. Then, even if she failed and fell short, she could look at herself in the mirror and feel pride, rather than regret.

Reaching down, she picked up her wooden daggers and got back to work. As she slashed and stabbed at the tree, leaving not a mark on it, she had to give thanks. If her Father was around to see this display, he would know something was wrong. She hadn’t fumbled this badly at her dagger work the first time he’d helped her get the Skill. If he suspected something, then he would definitely have used his Identification Skill. Then she’d have to explain what had happened and worse, what she planned to do. He might have tried to stop her. He’d have done it to protect her, but that was irrelevant since that wasn’t what she wanted. She could understand it though.

That didn’t matter though as he wasn’t here. Aisling hadn’t had anyone capable of regrowing his foot on hand. But, true to her word, she had made sure it would be resolved and so had bundled him onto a merchant caravan. A merchant caravan crewed and led by those Jorge had helped save. They were taking him a few towns over to another dozey little town called Grimhollow. Terrible name but apparently the Assistant Guildmaster there was a skilled healer and would have him back on his feet, both of them, in no time. But a merchant caravan didn’t necessarily move fast and while the trip there and back might have taken Jorge six days, it was going to take the merchant's caravan at least that many just to get there. Then he’d have to make his way back. She had at best, nine days.

Looking at the sky she judged she had another five hours before dinner. All she could do was hope Nate could find a Dungeon with his stupid perception Skills before her Father returned, hale and whole. Because if he couldn’t, she didn’t know how she was going to explain this whole situation to her Father. Or worse, how much longer she could hold out with being Classless. Gritting her teeth she put her anxiety to work on the tree. It would chip before she did!

*************

“So all I am saying, Boss man, is maybe give the brothel a go? You never know if you’ll like something till you try it,” Frick espoused, his floppy ears moving about in some unknown breeze as he floated along beside him beneath the trees of Firth Forest.

“Does Helmfirth even have a brothel?” Nate asked.

“Of course it does. It has three. Though only one of them is anything you might call ‘fancy’. The others are more for, you know, your laymen types. Lumberjacks and stall workers and farmers,” Frick explained.

“How do you even know this? When did you go to a brothel?” Nate replied, utterly confused by when the weird little Spirit had snuck off.

“With your current Magic Power, Boss man, I can get to around five hundred metres away from you. That’s a long way in a small town like Helmfirth. All the way, really,” Frick finished with a mischievous smile on his blue face.

“I swear by the Wanderer, if you’ve been peeping Frick I am going to start putting restrictions on your movements!” Nate started to raise his voice but, realising where they were, lowered it to an angry hiss.

“Not to worry, Boss man. Just a little teasing. I didn’t even peek in the rooms in the brothel. Was just seeing what was what and who was who, you know? Heard a great pick up line though. Wanna hear it?” Frick asked innocently.

“No. Hell to the no. In fact, go make sure we’re headed the right way. We’re far enough into the forest now and I want to focus on my new Skills and definitely don’t want to hear another word out of you about brothels,” Nate growled with a faux glare at his Familiar before pointing up at the sky.

Frick, true to the new balance they had found, agreeably began floating up through the trees. The little bastard was slowly returning to his old self and that apparently meant occasionally winding Nate up by talking about brothels. One day, maybe he’d actually ask a little about Frick’s previous Boss. But not today. Today was for finding Dungeons and extending the range on his new spatial Skills.

“You’re heading the right way, Boss. Should be in the weird mana zone pretty soon. Just keep going straight,” Frick said, the words echoing in Nate's mind.

With confirmation given, Nate activated Spatial Sensitivity and Eyes of the Runic Artist. His plan was to use the two together with the hope that once he got Spatial Sensitivity to level twenty and evolved it, he could evolve it into a version that was visual and combine it with his Eyes of the Runic Artist. The new sense ballooned out in a five metre radius around him and he felt…nothing. Nothing unusual. No ripples. He didn’t have a better understanding of the distance between himself and objects around him. Closing his eyes for a moment he couldn’t tell where anything was using the new skill.

Thinking about it, that wasn’t surprising, but it seemed he wasn’t the only one that had thought it might function like that.

“Can ya feel this, Boss man?” yelled Frick as the little goblin hurled a pile of sod at him. It moved so slowly that Nate got to watch it break apart before it ever impacted his barrier in a hail of dirt. There was no way he’d walk around Firth forest without one of the Barrier runes in his robe activated. He was unlikely to survive a surprise attack after all.

“It doesn’t tell me where things are in space,” he explained, eyes narrowed as he stared at Frick debating shooting some fire at him. It wouldn’t do anything to the Spirit, but it would make him feel better.

With a sigh, he decided against it. Mana was precious now, after all.

“Which makes sense, you know? I mean, my eyes do that. Tell me the shape of a tree and roughly how far away it is. With Eyes of the Runic Artist on, I can get an even better idea. But, we want to level Spatial Sensitivity. Pretty obvious how we do it, isn’t it?” Nate asked his Familiar.

Frick grinned floating closer to him, “The other two Spatial Skills.”

“Let’s start with From Me, To You.”

True to his word, Nate picked up a small stick from the ground. Then, focusing on the base of a nearby tree he activated the skill. Mana flowed from his reserve into his Class Core and From Me, To You activated, reading his intent. The stick vanished from his hand and appeared just above the dirt around the tree before falling to the ground almost soundlessly. With Spatial Sensitivity active he could feel what was happening. Better than that though, with his Eyes of the Runic Artist he could see what was happening with the mana that went into the Skill. It hadn’t functioned as he’d expected.

“You look confused, Boss. Or maybe constipated? It was a pretty dense lunch,” Frick quipped, flitting about.

“Was just surprised at how the Skill worked.”

Frick waited for him to continue, lazily floating around as he looked at Nate with a raised blue eyebrow. Nate gave a small snort and indulged the Spirit.

“I had expected the mana to cause the two locations, the stick and the ground, to be drawn towards each other. You know, like two funnels slowly getting closer and closer until they made contact, creating a tunnel that the object would then pass through,” he said, pausing to see Frick’s reaction.

“And?” Frick asked dutifully.

“The drawing of two points together happened, but it was totally driven by just one side. When I activated the Skill I could see the mana blossom at the ground beneath the tree. My target. It then…how to describe it…I could see the behaviour of the mana change. It didn’t flow, like mana normally does. It looked like a very weird shape.”

“Sounds like a spell form,” Frick said, butting in.

“Could be,” Nate replied before continuing, gesticulating as he tried to explain the phenomenon. “Anyway, once it had made that shape, the funnel extended from that point until it reached my hand and the stick vanished and appeared at the destination. It happened incredibly fast.”

“What about the sensitivity skill?” asked Frick.

“I felt it. The ripples of space as it was compressed. The tunnel. All of it. Even the…spellform…if that is what it was.”

“Better get to work then Boss. Just gotta raise that skill to level ten or so. Then we can sweep this forest and see if it works on Dungeons like you hope.”

Nate nodded at Frick’s words. It was time to get to work and he was on the clock. He’d agreed to go to Kiri’s for dinner so he couldn’t stay out here after dark and keep looking. Now that he had tested From Me, To You, it was time to try the other Skill he’d gotten. No Steps Necessary. In his head though, he was probably just going to call it teleport. With a thought he activated the skill, feeling more mana flow out of his reserve this time. More than twice as much. Instantly, he was standing eight metres away. He’d felt it again. Only this time the tunnel and spellform, or whatever it was, had originated with him. Within him.

He’d felt it form in his chest and reach out towards where he wanted to move. The moment the distance had been covered, he’d felt the tunnel form. Better, as he passed through the tunnel, he’d sensed the spatial fluctuations. He could feel the instability. The pressure. Space wanted to be stable. The mana and his intent were acting against it, temporarily reshaping it to his desires. A tunnel that connected two points in space, forcing them, for the barest of moments, to become one. No steps necessary indeed.

As amazing as teleporting was, and it was amazing, absolutely awesome - by the Gods, he loved magic – but he wasn’t out here in the Forest to play. He was here to find a Dungeon. The notification was dismissed a moment later.

Spatial Sensitivity 1 > 2

He just needed to use his Skills more to create the spatial ripples, to condense space. So he could feel the difference. That seemed to be enough to level the Skill. Unfortunately, he could likely only manage No Steps Necessary a total of ten times before completely emptying his mana reserve.

“Why’s it so expensive, Frick?” he asked as he frowned in annoyance.

“You’re bending space, Boss? What did you expect? Besides, spatial mana is a higher concept. They’re normally more mana intensive,” Frick replied as they continued to march deeper into the forest.

He thought he’d heard that terminology before. Higher concept. As curious as he was, and he was nothing if not a curious guy, he just didn’t have the time to delve into that right now. Besides, Frick probably wasn’t an expert. He could pick his brains about it later. For now he needed to focus on levelling his Spatial Sensitivity and to do that, he was going to have to rely on From Me, To You, because with that at least, he could likely slowly replenish his mana as they walked. Maybe he would throw in a No Steps Necessary once every hour. Reaching into his spatial storage for one of the three mana gems inside, he felt the ripple in space again.

A grin formed on his face. He could continue to practise tonight in his room. The ripple had been small, but he thought it would be enough, and surrounded by his Mana Gathering runes, running out of mana was far less of an issue in his room at the Oaken Ring. He could just play with his spatial ring while he waited in his room to absorb enough mana to use his Spatial Skills. It was a shame that their mana costs didn’t decrease as they levelled, like many of his other Skills. He supposed getting more range was the better of the two options, but he still lamented the loss. He’d have to focus his Class Core into advancing his Wandering Realmwalker Class first to get all those Magic Stats.

At least now he had a path forward. He’d raise his Spatial Sensitivity skill to level ten in a few days and then comb this forest till he found what they needed. Glancing at the sky he guessed he had five hours as he trudged onward. It seemed no matter what he did, no matter what happened, he always ended up doing more walking. With that thought he got back to work. It was going to be a long day.