We all stood there in silence for almost a minute, the others staring at me, as I held the Staff in my hands, turning it over, and even thrusting with it a few times, trying to get it to do something, as I equipped it, and unequipped it, feeling the bonus it gave, but little more than that, which had me wondering just what was going on, as the others coughed, obviously anticipating something as well.
"So is it, like, opening windows and menus for you, and you're just playing with it? Or is it somehow busted?" asked Ren, to which I shrugged.
"I..the Carriage I could feel. It's power called to me, and responded the moment I touched it. This thing? It has power, but it's not mine, I guess it's…" I trailed off, as my eyes gazed at the table, and soon, everyone else followed my line of sight to stare at Motoyasu, who was…blank faced was all I could call it. Like he was waiting for something, and realizing what it had to be, I walked around the table to where he sat, Waltz helping him to his feet as he seemed almost stunned, and then I held out the Staff to him.
The moment his hands touched it, after I unequipped it for the last time, his whole body began to glow slightly. Not like a blinding halo or radiance, but instead a subtler glow. An aura of presence that seemed to make him more real in that moment than he had been, as his red gem, and the one within the Staff shone together, which answered why Fitoria had been so concerned with me, if the Carriage had been doing that…though now I was left to wonder where the gem was on that one, as I didn't remember seeing any yellow stones inlaid on it anywhere.
Regardless, Motoyasu's eyes were flying as the menus must be opening before him, and I watched his mouth move a mile a minute, as he read them out to himself. I couldn't read his lips, but it was obvious he was agitated, before suddenly, he fell back into his seat, and began to take deep breaths, like he was coming down from a kilometer sprint or something, as his chest heaved with each inhale and exhale.
"Okay, I think…yeah I think I've got it," he said at last, and we looked towards him expectantly, as he waved his hands before him, obviously miming the mental work of moving the stuff out of his sight so he could look at us.
"It's just like Bard said, this thing is offering me two choices on how to use the power contained in the Staff. The first is the simplest, it's a power that allows us to level our magic like we can with some of the skills and forms. Each use giving a little bit of EXP, which means we can slowly level them up, turning a small fireball, into the sort of thing you use to set a city ablaze in a single spell," he said, and Aultcray, a darkness crossing his face briefly, stroked his beard and nodded.
"That is the power I gain when I wield that Staff. It was the power to turn a simple spell into one that could win battles, a power I made use of in the war without regret," he said, and we nodded back, before turning to Motoyasu again.
"Yeah, the second one sounds a bit more complex. It will give us the ability to 'customize' our spells. The way it explains it, we'd stop gaining spells as they are, and instead learn their components. You know, like what they target, their element, and their effects, and we'd be able to mix them up. Turning something like a fireball into a long range healing spell," he explained, which had Ren and I look at each other, while Naofumi looked a bit confused.
"So one makes you stronger, and the other makes you…what like a magician or something? Doesn't that mean we want the first one hands down?" he asked, which had Ren sigh in annoyance, but then stop as he considered it. As for me, I turned to Aultcray.
"A lot of that will depend on how fast spells level. Your highness, do you have any rough guess on how long it took you to make your spells significantly stronger than how they start?" I asked, and the King had to think about that, sitting back in his chair and closing his eyes, obviously mentally calculating just how long it had taken to gain significant power with the spells he knew.
"I was a consummate professional with my magic, and thus, never overtaxed myself save when it would be needed to win the battle. Still, I was free with it, thanks to my higher than average MP. Thus my spells leveled at about the rate of once per fortnight for those spells I focused on before they reached level 10, and once a month after that plateau was achieved," he said.
"And how many levels does it take to make a simple fireball into something larger?" I asked, remembering the fireball that the Princ…Adventurer Myne had used against the Shield Hero's party and myself on the cliffside.
"If you wish to end the battle, I would say level twenty or thirty would be where it gains that power," he responded, allowing me to do a quick mental calculation, and coming to the conclusion that, nice as leveling our spells sounded, that was a power gain method that took our most premium currency, time, so it was probably a bad deal.
"Does the modifying spell function say anything about spell power? Can we, say, adjust it?" asked Ren, which started me, as I hadn't even thought of that as an option. Motoyasu, nodding a bit, brought some of his windows back with a swipe of his hand, and scrolled through them, before going 'aha!' as he found something.
"Looks like…yeah, we can. But the more power you put into them, the more MP they cost…looks like you can spend more than you have though, to REALLY give them a power boost, but you go negative for a while if you do. Considering how weak I feel when I run out of MP, let alone the passing out from SP, it might not be the best idea to do that without some MP restoration potions handy," he opined, and I nodded, looking towards the other two.
"Well then, I think the choice is clear. Good as a straight power boost is, we can't spend the time to earn it. If modifying our spells gives us something similar, and utility on the side, I say that one gets my vote," I said, Ren stroking his chin in a very 'old man' kind of way, reminding me that he was the youngest of us here instead.
"I…hate to agree, because earning power is better than just being handed it like this. Worse, I doubt the cost of spells would go up in the other method," he said, turning to the King, who silently nodded.
"And since that is the case, the spells would be more spamable. Like, we could fire off a lot of them, and slowly level them up to do even more stuff over time, like a ramp up of nuking wizards," he said, turning to Motoyasu, who, having moved a window aside, was having to turn towards us, since I doubted he had a GOOD view of us thought all the junk cluttering his vision.
"Honestly, they both sound good, so I'd be willing to go with either one, especially since I'm not one for spells. Bard's made more use of his than I have of mine," he said, and so all three of us turned to Naofumi, who started a bit in his seat.
"Wait, I…you want me to decide?" he asked, and we three all nodded at him.
"It's a vote thing. We're all here, right now, and that means we all get input. If you agree with Motoyasu that either is good enough we'll flip a coin or something," Ren said, and that seemed to shock the guy, like he'd expected us to leave him out of this discussion or something. To be fair, Ren had sighed dismissively just a minute or so ago, but that was more because he was leaping to the final conclusion, rather than gathering the appropriate information first.
Still, put on the spot, he placed his hands on his face and leaned against the table, looking like he was trying to shut out the whole world as he thought, leaving the rest of us silently waiting for him. I noticed him peek out between his fingers for a moment, again, like he really expected us to pressure him or something…gods he had a low opinion of us. He had reason, to be fair, but this was a game discussion. Voices might get raised, and emotions heated, but real gamers knew that when it came time to make a decision, you didn't rush it, nor put pressure on the other guy. Finally, he sighed and lowered his hands.
"Okay, the way I see it, the leveling sounds nice, and since the King said it doesn't raise the cost, we could get a LOT of use out of it," he began, turning towards Ren, who nodded.
"But, we can learn a lot of spell types here. I know over a dozen myself already, and you guys got those crystal balls, right, so you probably know a couple too. Mix and matching effects and stuff, and being able to adjust power on the fly like with the 'Champion' skill sounds like it would be more useful overall. And you never know, we might eventually find Weapon Forms that lower the cost of spells too," he said, turning to me.
"So my vote goes with Bard. The spell levels sound like a great, wth a linear gain, but editing spells to use in any situation sounds like it would be more of a scaling power gain," he said, placing his hand on the table like the gavel of a judge finishing his statement. The rest of us looked at each other, nodded, and Motoyasu, waving his hands in front of him, did whatever he needed to accept the power, glowing a bit brighter for just a second, before he went back to normal.
We waited as he came down from that high, rather than interrupting him as he took several deep breaths, and then looked through his menus. He took several minutes mumbling to himself as he keyed his way through them, waving his hands in front of him in a way that would really have looked silly, if you didn't know what he was doing. Finally though, he let out a deep sigh, and then closed everything down, before turning to us.
"Okay, so did you guys get a new menu in the magic section or what?" he asked, and we three…well I assume the others did, but I opened my menu and scrolled to it, eventually pulling up the menu with my thre…no four now spells thanks to the voice throw one. Still, other than listing those out, I saw nothing new, closing it down, and shaking my head, while looking towards Ren and Naofmui, who soon did likewise.
"Alright, so, when I go into my magic menu now, there's a small button to the side, it 'scrolls' the menu to the side, opening what looks like some kind of debug interface honestly, with lots of settings for the spells, laid out in grid li…" the moment he mentioned where it was in the menu, my interface popped up of its own accord, and instantly filled my vision with scrolling boxes.
This time I'd expected it, and leaning back in my chair, I unfocused my gaze, trying to take in as much as I could of what was before me, and to be fair, it meant I saw nothing specific, but I had…four primary windows, including my stats, skills, spells, and one more I didn't recognize, all sort of flashing with overlaid text. I saw the word 'System Unlock' in the text a few times, including some crossed through lines that I barely glimpsed as I tried to keep an eye on it all at once.
Still, I was able to watch as the three menu pages expanded, and what looked like a source code page wrote whole new lines of code into something. It was machined, like the sort you'd get from an auto code generator program, but it worked as the menus shone for just a moment, and 'Spell Editor' unlocked on my magic menu, which then became the only window open as it shifted to it automatically, letting me see the interface for it.
And it was…simple. The thing was a few drop down boxes, a slider for power, and not too much else to make it look fancy, unlike the long list of names and things I got on my follower menu. Looking it over, I was actually shocked to see it be so pedestrian, and quickly clicked on things, finding my targets could be just about anything between an area of effect, single target, multi target, self target, and even flip between allies and enemies which was nice. Friendly fire usually isn't, after all, so the ability to turn it off was a good thing.
Beyond that, my effects were…teleport, link, thought projection, and the highlighting vision. The effects even listed out how they'd work if I were to give them to the various target types, which was nice, as I could see uses for most of them. Giving my allies (Void Gaze) would be useful, especially since I could apparently highlight targets with it. The cost was a bit much, honestly, and went up per target, but I could easily see it being useful in a lot of situations.
Turning off my interface, we discussed what the others had, which turned out to be…extensive. Even Naofumi, who'd 'learned' all his spells from a book, the normal way apparently, was ahead of me on number, since he knew several healing and basic attacks, while the other two had some more unique ones, with Ren of all of us having the biggest arsenal, as he'd sought out crystal balls just after getting his first few spells, even visiting places where they were on sale and buying their whole stock if he could.
Mind, that was also when we discovered that Motoyasu had a much more in depth spell creation system, involving things that looked like runes, that he could string together in various ways, even combining elements and effects into single spells, something the rest of us couldn't do. That…well we realized, after I pointed out my version of the Follower system allowed for more people, that the ones to whom the Vassal Weapons technically 'belonged' got something better than the rest of us.
"Now I want to go to find one of my weapons just to see what happens. Isn't the Vassal Axe one?" asked Ren, and the Queen nodded.
"Indeed, as is the Gauntlet, which we shall leave where it is for now. Still, I will contact my brother-in-law. Perhaps, if we phrase it right, the Four Heroes might visit his keep, and be allowed to at least touch his weapons, as that seems all that is required to unlock your powers," she said, as Motoyasu handed the Staff back to the King. Aultcray, looking at it longingly, seemed reluctant to place it back in its bindings, but did so, wrapping it back in the package it had been in.
"Probably best not to seal that thing away again. You never know, it might come in handy, and regardless of what you did in the past, denying yourself the ability to fight now won't make up for it," said Ren, sounding…very mature actually, and no one denied his words, even as the King, looking longingly at the package, placed his hands on it, and turned towards us, gesturing so we looked to the Queen.
"We shall…take that under advisement. Honestly I'm not even sure we could seal it up again for a while anyway. It takes longer to cast the seals than to dispel them, after all," she said, before rising from her seat, and then walking over towards one of the walls, standing before the map of the realm, hanging between two of the pillars.
"Still, the power of the Staff is not all we have to offer the Heroes today. I returned when I did for a purpose, one that placed a time limit on how long I could stay, lest the information I bare become useless," she began, and then pointed her finger towards the southern part of the map, a place that appeared to be a large archipelago off the coast of Melromarc, though part of the Kingdom if the lines around it were any indication.
"My Shadows have informed me that the rifts above Cal Mira have begun to turn from red, to purple lately," she said, with a voice that said we should be very excited by that news, as the adventurers in our party sat there, jaws dropping, while Raphtalia and Filo looked as confused as we were.
(A/N: Haven't done one of these in a bit, but just to say it, the system being given to the three Heroes is the same interface as from Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, though they can access it from anywhere, rather than needing to go back to a particular place to use it to craft spells. So they can make whatever they need on the fly, and even adjust spells they have to fit situations.
Meanwhile, Motoyasu's more advanced one is from the cRPG Tyranny, a fantastic game in its own right, if a bit incomplete due to events behind the scenes(It's finished mechanically, but in terms of design and story it's a bit rushed at points). There 'spells' are more words and sentences made of the names of the Archons, beings of power born of mortals.
The biggest difference is Motoyasu can basically shove all kinds of effects onto his spells, like something that blinds, does damage, and freezes, all at once. The others, in contrast, would only be able to attach one effect at a time to a single spell.)