The Runic Artist

Nate woke before the sun was up. Sleep had been difficult. He was already sleeping less, down to about six hours a night from his normal eight to ten. He chalked that development up to his heightened Endurance or Constitution. Maybe both. He really wasn’t sure but they both seemed like they could impact his sleeping needs. That wasn’t the problem though. It was anxiety. He was worrying about Kiri and his mind just wouldn’t settle long enough to let him fall asleep easily. What sleep he had gotten didn’t feel restful either.

With a grunt he rolled out of the comfort of his bed. It was a new experience these last few weeks, not having to worry about the little things, like doing his own laundry. The suite had a little hamper he could dump clothes in and the staff of the Oaken Ring were diligent, returning them the same day, washed and pressed. He guessed there were probably some Skills to make such things simpler but even with that, it was still a nice change. Getting dressed he tucked his new Projectile Gathering rune into his robe before making his way out of the Oaken Ring. You could never be too careful.

Frick floated over to join him as Nate quickly topped off his Mana Reserve before making his way out of the Oaken Ring. The walk out into the forest to check on the Dungeon was uneventful and after finding that the Dungeon entrance still felt ‘locked’ when he checked it with Spatial Sensitivity, he turned on his heel and made his way back to the Oaken Ring in time for breakfast. He had, for a moment, considered going straight to the Guild. However, the food they had in the Guild bar was unlikely to compare to the Oaken Rings chef. He was absolutely basing this assumption off the fact that he’d heard people talk about the chef of the Oaken Ring. He’d never heard anyone talk about the chef of the Guild’s bar. Breakfast today was a beautiful flaky pastry filled with meat and warm cheese. The taste was divine and after washing it down, he made his way over to the Guildhouse.

He was waved towards the stairs by a put-upon Melinda, crowded as she was by the early morning rush of Adventurers who were picking out their jobs for the day. As he passed, most of the Adventurers turned to watch him, or - after a moment, he realised - to watch Frick who had taken up residence on his shoulder. He quickly ascended the stairs and knocked on Aisling’s door. A moment later the door opened and Deverell ushered him in, before stepping out of the Guildmasters office and closing the door behind himself.

“Sit,” came Aisling’s deep voice, followed a moment later by the shuffling of paper as she rifled through her desk, clearly in search of something.

Sitting down across from her, Frick floated down taking the seat to his left. Aisling’s head resurfaced, short hair spiked up as though she had been electrocuted, which he realised after a moment, was entirely possible. She did not however look happy. Leaning forward on the desk she slid a piece of paper across it towards him. Glancing at it he realised it was the note he’d sent to her, asking if he could purchase mana.

“You weren’t completely honest with me, Nate. Were you?” she asked, a frown creasing her tanned forehead.

“I’m going to need more information,” he hedged, his mind whirring through the possibilities. He’d asked if he could buy mana. What about that had caused this reaction? Before he could continue down that path of thought, Aisling opened her mouth to continue.

“At first, I thought that this was a request. You asking if you could buy some mana from the Guild. That would’ve made sense. However, Deverell managed to get in contact with our Guildhouse in the Etrua Capital. They have a much more extensive library, and we wanted to know best how to help your growth. What teachers would suit you best? Would an Enchanter be sufficient or did we have anyone available with a knowledge of runes that could perhaps speed up your development?” she barely paused for a breath before continuing, frustration clear in both her face and her voice.

“And Deverell of course, with his attention to detail, asked after your Realmwalker Class. Turns out, we do have a record of that Class once before. Not at your rarity, it seems. It was an Epic Class we had on record. Do you know what one of the Achievement requirements for the Realmwalker Class is, Nate?”

Ah shit.

Nate slowly nodded. It was hard not to see where this was going. He had intentionally left off the whole, from another world bit in their previous discussion. It looked like that was about to come back to bite him in the ass. He hadn’t been afraid Aisling would attack him or anything. She’d been nothing but helpful and supportive, and even if it was because she saw him as a future asset for the Adventurers Guild, she’d still made that System Contract with him. Instead, he’d continued to keep her at arms length. Was it because he saw that she had the capability to have power over him, like his Aunt had for so many years? Or was it something else? Whatever it was, it was too late now to ‘fix’ it. The only way out, was through.

Looking up, he could see she was still waiting for him, and for a moment he could swear he saw a spark in her brown eyes.

“The Achievement requirement is, having a high spatial affinity, and setting foot in multiple universes,” he breathed out with a sigh.

Aisling leaned back as he admitted to her that he was not from this world.

“Universes? Not Planes?” she probed, her eyes looking curious, and maybe he thought, a little confused.

“Maybe that’s the difference between Legendary and Epic?” he asked.

“What’s a Universe?” she asked, before backpedalling. “No, don’t answer that. In fact, I don’t think I even want to know. Planar implications are already something that is more of a concern for Guild Prefects or higher. The bottomline is, you’re not from this world, are you?”

Nate just shook his head, deciding it was better to just answer as simply as possible. After all, was he really knowledgeable enough to explain the concept of a multiverse to someone? He certainly didn’t think so.

“And this,” she said, tapping the paper, “Wasn’t a request if you could buy mana from the Guild. You were actually asking if it is possible to purchase mana at all. Because you have no idea how our currencies work. Am I right?”

He simply nodded sheepishly. She was right, that was exactly what he’d done, without considering the implication of him not understanding. He’d thought they used gold, or other valuable materials, like they had back on Earth. But this wasn’t Earth. This was a place with mana and magic. Of course those things would have an impact on the economy and he’d unwisely asked the person who was effectively his sponsor, without contemplating how that question might come across. He wanted to facepalm but given Aisling was watching him, he didn’t want to make more of a fool of himself than he already had.

“Fine,” Aisling said to him, and he could hear the disappointment and exasperation in her voice. He supposed he deserved it. “This is going to be as quick of an explanation as I can give. I hope your Intellect stat is halfway decent because if you have any questions, you can take them to Deverell and believe me, his explanation is going to be far more lengthy and philosophical than mine.”

After a moment of thought she added, “I apologise if this comes across as me lecturing you, but I am going to work off the assumption that you know nothing of this world. Interrupt me if you need to, Nate.”

She watched Nate for a moment waiting and when he sat there attentive, she continued. “We are out on the edge of the Kingdom. This far out, most trade in gold. Why gold? Because it holds enchantments better than most materials which makes it valuable anywhere you go. Gold is always a fallback currency and most places will trade in gold coins. The only reason it dominates this far out is because the mana density out here is relatively high.”

That comment got a frown out of him. This was considered high density? Really? Compared with the Dungeon or Arikanvil’s research station, this felt thin. He had to use Mana Gathering runes to get more than dregs into his mana gems. Was this really considered high?

“I see you disagree. Well, you must’ve come from a truly blessed world then. We might revisit that later, when you’re ready,” Aisling said, choosing to ignore his snort in response. If only she knew. Was a Dead Realm blessed? He certainly didn’t think so.

“This is considered high, for our world,” she continued. “Let me pose the problem to you. I am curious to see if you can figure it out. Why do you think the mana density is high here, and not in the Capital?”

She watched him with the eyes of a hawk as he thought through the question. What would differ for a small town like this and the Capital? Number of people was an obvious one and he almost led with that. I mean, if people passively absorbed mana would that not lower the density? What stopped him was trees. Helmfirth was surrounded by trees and they were also constantly absorbing a small amount of mana. So if the theory was people, because living things absorbed mana, then wouldn’t the sheer number and density of trees around Helmfirth cause a similar problem.

He supposed it could be location based. Some locations being more prone to gathering mana than others, likely due to natural formations in the land. But if that occurred, given the reliance on mana for development, wouldn’t that be a prime place to build a town or city? That ruled out two natural reasons that Helmfirth might have a higher mana density than the Capital. What about an unnatural reason?

He laughed at himself as it hit him. Who was to say people didn’t do what he was doing in his suite in the Oaken Ring, but on a much larger scale?

“Mana Gathering runes?” he said, posing his answer as a question.

“Close enough. Mana Gathering Arrays. Enchantments, as far as I know. Not whatever it is you do with runes,” Aisling replied. “The Royals and Nobles collect as much of that ambient mana as they can at their estates.”

“Is that what makes them rich?” he inquired.

Aisling laughed at the question, “No, that’s just them being greedy assholes. No, they’re rich because of the Dungeons they control. That’s what the mana they collect is for. To feed it to their Dungeons.”

That caused Nate’s mind to seize up. How could you control a Dungeon? The confusion must’ve been written on his face as Aisling didn’t keep him waiting.

“What was the rarity of the Dungeon you encountered?” she asked patiently, leaning forward on her desk.

Nate glanced at Frick, who seeing the look on his face quickly piped up, “Uncommon.”

“Have you ever been in a Dungeon of a higher tier?” she questioned.

Nate shook his head and frowned when he saw Frick also shaking his head.

“What do you mean you’ve never been in a Dungeon above Uncommon? What did your last Master even do?” Nate asked him.

Frick’s ears drooped and the little blue goblin fidgeted in his seat, “He was a crafter alright! An Enchanter, boss man! That was my first time being in a Dungeon! I didn’t want you to break the contract!”

Nate stared at Frick, a frown marring his face. He’d been deceived again. “We’ll be discussing this later. In detail.”

Frick just nodded glumly, staring at the floor as Nate turned back to Aisling.

“Not a particularly knowledgeable Familiar. Must be young. I wonder why the System chose to reward you with it,” Aisling mused, “Well, that aside, Common and Uncommon Dungeons generally dissipate after they’ve been completed. I have been told that is because they lack the mana to form a functional core. Rare Dungeons and above do not suffer from this issue. This makes them more varied, as The System tends to assign ‘caretakers’ or ‘architects’ to these. I am not saying you can’t destroy a Rare or above Dungeon and cause it to dissipate, but you’d need to actively go after the Dungeon core to do so.”

“And the Royals and Nobles, they control these Dungeons?” Nate asked.

“Not all of them. The Adventurer’s Guild controls some, and I am sure there are some out there that are undiscovered. Dungeons of Rare tier and above are strategic resources. Destroying them destroys a country's ability to function and develop.”

Aisling reached into a drawer and pulled out a mana gem which she flicked across to him. It was smaller than his pinky. Picking it up he looked it over. The design was similar to his own mana gems, though the sigil quality was lower. Activating Eyes of the Runic Artist he started memorising the Sigils when he saw a new one.

Gather Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

Flow Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

Rebuff Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

All Directions Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

Both Directions Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

Condensed Mana Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

Without thinking he spoke the question that bubbled up in his mind out loud.

“What is condensed mana?”

“It’s the name for mana that is produced by a Class Core. Some call it condensed mana. Others call it processed mana. It amounts to the same thing though, mana that can be completely absorbed by your Class Core,” Aisling replied.

“This mana gem can collect and store processed mana?” Nate asked, his mind running wild with the implications.

“It can. Now, what do you think someone could do with Dungeons that could be repeatedly challenged, and these?” she asked him in response.

“You could have people complete the Dungeon while collecting all the processed mana into one of these, then use it to advance yourself,” Nate replied, flopping back in his chair.

“Precisely. Now, it’s not a perfect system. But that gem, when filled, is worth quite a lot. That gem, when filled, is how a crafter might advance their Class Core without battling or relying on ambient mana, which is a very slow process. This isn’t an infinite resource though. Dungeons take time to recharge. So, the more Dungeons someone controls, the more powerful they are and the richer they are. This is the major difference between the nobility and the rest of us. We have to fight for every scrap while they dine on processed mana and place themselves above most everyone.”

Nate thought for a moment before asking, “Is this how we can advance me fast enough to be competitive in the Tournament?”

Aisling laughed good naturedly, “How much do you think that gem, full, would cost?”

He shrugged in response, having no idea.

“Two hundred gold coins,” she stated firmly.

He did some quick maths in his head and worked out that his gold bars roughly translated to just short of four thousand gold coins.

“So, four thousand gold coins would get me around twenty of them? How much do you think that would advance me?” he asked.

“You have that much?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Maybe three or four levels, given your rarity. For context, that would maybe advance me a single level.”

Nate stared at Aisling, then down at the mana gem, then back up at Aisling. This news was terrible. He hadn’t realised how bad it was till now. He wasn’t rich after all! His villa in the Capital was quickly becoming a distant dream. Looking back up at Aisling, he was about to ask what sort of house four thousand gold would get him in the Capital when she started speaking again.

“With that handled, are you ready to meet your teacher?” she asked, a smile creeping back onto her face.