Chapter 6

The hero eats dinner and learns where his magic comes from

The tool shop owner busied himself over the fire making us some dinner as I told him about my encounter with the wizard after exiting the tomb. He exclaimed over the book, torn between devouring it then and there and his cooking.

"I never imagined it could be a whole journal," he told me. "Legends speak only about a tablet, with various words of wisdom chiseled onto it. But this? An actual historical account of Erdrick's deeds in his own hand? It would be priceless among scholars of history!"

This perked me up considerably. "Priceless you say?" I looked it over in a new light.

He turned at the sound of my voice and then let out a hearty laugh. "Oh, I see what you're thinking. You could sell it and get some better equipment."

"At the moment better equipment would keep me alive," I agreed. "The journal, while perhaps interesting and full of tips on how Erdrick defeated the evil he was up against that I could use in my travels, can't exactly be used in the same way."

"Agreed. It's almost falling apart it's so old, actually now that I think about it the binding is all messed up, the paper is fragile and yellowed with age, and it smells from being in a damp cave all these years. It's probably not worth as much as I thought. I'll give you three gold for it."

"Three?"

"Five- Ten! I'll give you ten gold for it!"

"I could go whack a few slimes on the head and get ten gold."

"Ah, but gold is worth more now that the Dragonlord has used so much of it up to make his army," the man protested. "So ten gold is worth a thousand in normal times."

"Tell that to the blacksmith," I grumbled. "He still wants fifteen hundred for a decent sword."

The spoon clattered to the ground. "How much?"

"Fifteen hundred."

"I didn't pay that much for this house, and that was before. What is he thinking?"

"That it's a risk selling someone claiming to be Erdrick's descendant weapons in the current climate? So it has to be worth his while?"

"Yes, I suppose," he reluctantly agreed, bending down to get the spoon. He went to wipe it off and continued stirring the stew.

"And it's not all that bad," I protested. "I figured it out. Even just sticking around here killing weak monsters at a decent pace it wouldn't take me longer than three days to earn enough money. It's not like the Dragonlord is going anywhere, there's no rush. I can use the practice in combat anyway, I've never really used a sword before."

"And you might learn another spell or two," he agreed absently.

"Yes, about that..."

He waved me off. "We can talk about that. We're talking about the journal now."

I thought we were talking about how much swords cost.

"It really is a fascinating find, and I'm willing to make you deal."

"I'm listening."

"Let me have it. It's safer anyway, you not lugging it around for it to fall into the Dragonlord's hands should one of his minions get hold of it. I'll give you a few things in exchange: In a few days I'll be able to make a copy of it. You can take the copy or just leave it here for safe keeping, but it'll be yours either way. You can then read it without fear of it falling apart, and I will have already read it so I can tell you what parts are the most interesting."

I rubbed my chin. "So give you something I already own in exchange for a copy of the thing I already own? That doesn't exactly sound-"

"Let me finish. Like I said, the journal is priceless, but you know I own something basically priceless as well. When the time comes I won't just loan you the armor, I'll outright give it to you. We trade two priceless things, what do you say?"

"That sounds like a better deal..." I suppose even after the Dragonlord is defeated his minions will be roaming the land. Someone is going to have to take care of them, and recover the gold. It may as well be me. The armor will help, even the man that can kill a Dragonlord can get overwhelmed or run out of magic out in some forest. Especially if they go berserk after he's dead and just swarm me. Even after he's dead it won't be useless, and one day when I'm old I could sell it and be set for the rest of my life. Apart from the intrinsic value of the scale, the armor worn by the hero that killed the Dragonlord would command a high price even it was just leather. "But actually it sounds like I'm getting the better deal. I can use the armor to make money, until the Dragonlord's minions are all dead, anyway. And given the number of them I've run into just around here, they seem limitless. Are you sure it's fair?"

"You're not thinking like a scholar, I can do something similar. If I can make one copy, I can make another. Yes, it won't be 'Erdrick's journal' the original, but in a way it'll be better. Like I said that book looks like it could fall apart at any moment. This one would be new, and created by using a real writing desk, a decent pen, and penned by a real scribe. Erdrick wrote it on the road, after all, so the quality will be questionable at best. My copy will be far easier to read."

I thought about this for a moment. Would Loto want his journal to be out there in this way? Would I? He did win, after all, so even his mistakes couldn't have been that bad. I would want heroes facing danger not to make the mistakes I did, wouldn't I? That's the whole point of writing down your story in the first place. To have an accurate record and set the story straight. It just seems… No, he didn't write it for just me, he even said himself I might not actually be related to him. He wrote it for whoever came after him in a time of need, and how can I greedily keep knowledge from people? But wait- "What stops someone from buying a copy from you, and then making their own copy, and selling it for less than a copy from you costs?"

"Well, nothing, I suppose," he admitted with a sour look on his face. "But only one made from the original is guaranteed to have the fewest errors. You start making a copy of a copy, and then a copy from that, and so on and errors might creep in."

I hummed. "But then we have the opposite problem, don't we? Only someone with a ton of gold is going to read it, because you won't sell the copies cheaply." At least not at first. Every copy will be worth less than the one before it because that's one more copy of it out in the world.

"Hey, it might not be swinging a hammer all day, but copying something like this is still a lot of work. And paper isn't cheap, neither is having a cover made and the whole thing bound together."

"I don't disagree, you should be paid for your efforts. What I'm proposing is some kind of borrowing system. I'll leave my copy here, but if someone wants to read it they can pay a few gold and get access to it."

"Like listening to music at a tavern," he agreed slowly. "A farmer wouldn't be able to afford a private musician, but all of them buying drinks and a meal generates enough business for a tavern to hire one. Everybody benefits. I could set up a place with a lot of books, not just this one, and charge a daily fee to read as many of them as you wanted. What in interesting idea."

"I suppose if you wanted to take one with you, to read that night at home, you could pay the value of the book. In case you 'forget' to bring it back, I mean. You get your money back when you bring the book back in good condition." And of course adding to the collection might get you a month's access or whatever.

"Yes... yes! That could work!"

"Combine that with an earlier idea I had about lending gold to people in exchange for a fee when it's repaid, and pretty soon you could really have an empire of lending shops. Books, gold, whatever!"

"Lending gold?"

"Sure. To take my example I go in, I want gold to buy a sword so they give it to me. I buy a sword and use it to make money killing monsters. I survive because now I have decent equipment so I make more than enough to pay the loan back, give them something extra for the use of the gold, and make extra for myself." I wouldn't have had to beg for the king's kindness if something like that existed. I would have just gone there.

"You're just full of good ideas, aren't you?"

I laughed. "Wait until you read the journal. Loto wanted to put water wheels on the sides of ships to help them move when there wasn't wind!"

"How in the world- Anyway, I'll see for myself. So we have a deal?" He stuck out his hand.

"Erdrick's journal in exchange for the first copy, to be left here, on display, for anyone to read should they request it, possibly for a fee to be split 50/50 between us, and the armor, which will be mine to keep once I present the token to you?" He nodded. "Deal." I shook his hand.

"I can't wait to get started. But for now, we eat."

The man dished out the stew, cut bread and got out a tub of butter, poured us each a glass of ale, and we sat down. We ate for a few minutes before he spoke up again. "So let's talk about this magic you did."

"It was the most amazing thing," I began, starting to get excited about it again. "Suddenly I just knew, out of the blue, that I could heal myself. A chanted some words and felt something leave me, but in exchange my wounds healed up. I knew somehow I could only do it twice at most in succession, but that's still better than nothing. What happened?"

"You say 'out of the blue' but that's not exactly the truth is it? Something had just happened right before that, right?"

"Well, yes," I admitted. "I had killed a monster. But how does that relate? I've killed a hundred of the things by now if I've killed a single one."

He nodded. "It does. My boy, you have to understand something about the world. Most people, just are not going to put the effort in to become great fighters. Why would they? Take our current situation for example; monsters show up after the Dragonlord steals the kingdom's gold right? Do the people of the world band together, sweep across the countryside, and try to do something about it?"

"No," I decided. "The king told me they sent soldiers, hundreds of men, to the castle of the Dragonlord. Only one returned." Only one. Should I be suspicious of that? Is there a spy in the castle now?

"Exactly. They relied on those supposedly who trained to protect them to do their job and protect them. But these soldiers didn't do extra training or bring any better weapons or armor than the base minimum the kingdom provided. Imagine a man simply deciding one day to become a blacksmith and picking up a hammer. Is his first creation going to be anywhere near as good as he imagines it?"

"Unless he's some kind of prodigy, no. How would he even know where to start?"

He jabbed the air with his spoon. "Exactly. Is it any wonder they all died? I don't mean to make light of their sacrifice, but they had no idea what they were in for, because they didn't work up to that assault of the castle like you are doing. You came looking for help, you didn't just rush off and try to take down the Dragonlord on the first day. Now those that are left are forced to cower in villages like this one hoping some hero comes along, who has the strength to carry on. Someone who casts their fears aside, and knows they can survive."

"Is that a song?"

He harrumphed. "Never mind. The point is they aren't out there fighting, getting stronger and helping to rid the world of this evil. They don't study magic or swordplay either, just going about their daily lives as they had been. If they were called upon to fight, they couldn't. Even the guards that escort people to and from the castle are more likely to simply run from the Dragonlord's minions than directly confront them. It's safer, not risking his ire by killing his creatures."

So am I putting the town in danger by staying here? I've killed plenty of monsters, is he going to be planning some kind of revenge? If it takes it out on the town I'd feel terrible!

"So they aren't really becoming better soldiers either, maybe better runners," he mused. "But you- different story. You show up, buy weapons, and head out to make a name for yourself. You kill dozens, then hundreds, then maybe thousands of the Dragonlord's minions by the time you're through and therein lies the key."

Ugh, thousands? I hope not. "To what?"

"To your progress. Why you're different from the average villager now, and how that difference will continue to grow until you mature into a proper hero. Consider that these monsters were created with magic, after all. You kill them, that magic is released when they turn back into gold. Most of it just vanishes back into wherever magic comes from, but a tiny bit of it 'sticks' to you, if you will. Now given what I've said about the villagers here, and the fact you've killed the Dragonlord's minions and they haven't, what happened?" He paused, gesturing for me to fill in the blank.

"As I've killed enough of them for it to make a difference, now I can use magic too. That's what happened to me. I killed something, and that little bit of magic was enough to push me over the edge, and now I know a spell."

He nodded. "Exactly. Not only are you absorbing a little energy you're out there swinging your club- er- sword around, you're getting stronger. I bet you could feel it after a few monsters drew near."

"It wasn't pleasant," I agreed, remembering. "I switched hands just to try and give myself a break. But it did get a little easier."

"So just like the blacksmith that gets stronger bit by bit every day he works, you will get stronger too. Your craft isn't hammering iron, it's killing monsters, and you can get better at it just like an apprentice blacksmith. We actually have a name for this- levels. It's a kind of shorthand for scholars that study these sorts of things. We would say 'he went up a level.' When you do that you can take more punishment, you get stronger, you can use spells more often."

"So if I keep 'raising my level' by killing monsters..."

"You'll absorb more magic, and that will translate into more spells. We aren't sure where the knowledge comes from, perhaps magic itself or the gods give you knowledge when they know you can handle it? We can't really say."

"But wait, I could learn magic the other way, right? If you had books of spells-" I stopped as he was shaking his head.

"This magic you've absorbed is instinctual. Don't get me wrong, you've got magical power inside you now there's no mistaking it. You can use it however you wish, and if you did study you could use that power to cast those spells you learned in the traditional way. But you would still have to start from the beginning and learn to read magical writings and manipulate magic like anyone else does it. And that you just don't have the time for. Believe me, if rumors are to be believed the spells you learn will be combat type spells useful for your adventure, and not how to keep water clean or something like that. You are, after all, killing things designed to be killing machines so it makes sense you get combat type spells absorbing their residual magic when they die. You're much better off raising your levels out there and taking what magic you can get than spending years as an apprentice."

"So I'm essentially using the magic of the Dragonlord against him." I guess I see his point. It's better to get stronger, and get gold to buy better stuff, and take the magic as a nice bonus rather than the point of doing all that otherwise. Studying magic will get me none of those things, and I would still need armor and to condition myself to take hits because you can bet the Dragonlord is going to hit me a bunch of times. I would need a lot of 'levels" to survive the encounter, levels I won't get unless I'm out there bashing slimes in the face. Just knowing magic isn't good enough. I see his point.

"That's a good way to look at it."

"Okay. I get it. So what's my next move?"

"If you're looking for a goal to shoot for, raise your levels until you feel confident moving about the countryside. Visit some other towns, and see if you can't figure out where the princess was taken. Probably the Dragonlord's castle but who knows? That's your next goal, bring her back. Then you can find the token. With that you can convince more people, and maybe get more in the way of help from others. In the short term rest for the night at the inn, I can show you were it is, and on the way introduce you to a man that can restore your magical power. Yes, he knows a spell to restore a person's magic power, but of course he can't cast it on himself. That would be… That would be… Crazy!" He laughed.

"I suppose." So, like Loto said, the exact person I need just happens to be here? If he really can restore my magical potential I can fight near the town, heal myself when I need to, have that loss restored, and continue on like that as long as I want. Very suspicious. "How long to copy the book?"

"Several days."

"Fine. I'll want to read it before I go too far on this quest, like you said if there's mistakes Erdrick made on his quest at the beginning I want to know about them. It seems important. By that time I should have enough for the better sword, and enough 'levels' I don't have to worry too much about the long journey between villages. Hopefully someone will know something about the princess, and I can get her rescued soon."

"Sounds like a plan. You know where I'll be the next few days."

"I do. Have fun copying the book I guess?"

"I'll try. You done? Want seconds? Otherwise we can clean up here and take a walk."

"I'm the hero of the world, of course I want seconds."