AUTHORS NOTES
Short chapter today, but the next chapter will be MUCH bigger!
Havok22: She knows well and truly what will happen if she pushes herself too far. She definitely has limits however!
Archer1eye: Well, we'll just have to wait and see ;-) I think Sharein might re-visit those mines sometime in the future... after all it's currently the only path into the underworld that she knows about! Malkarov feels a great sense of responsibility towards Easthaven, he is Easthaven's Wizard and he takes that very seriously indeed. Keep that angry mob in mind, but I don't think it will be catching her anytime soon.
Slyksylva: Just a filler chapter for today!
Chapter 7329th-30th Day of Middle Spring 768 n.c
Visiting the farm was an… experience. If I thought the questions from my sisters around learning magic were many and varied, they wanted me to describe in minute detail every last stone in Castlemere and every blade of grass we saw on the way there and back! I saved the most important parts for dinner; where I described our adventure into the copper mine in Isk to rescue the kidnapped miner, watching the wizard Alladax Polymorph into a red dragon and the reason for our travel, the orc's search for the Banner of Gruumsh. Mother let out a little gasp when I described the bones that made up the Banner and that the bone held by the Allarthians had fallen into enemy hands. This made me very curious and once dinner was over and the younger children had gone to bed I found the opportunity to ask Mother about it. We went outside a short way from the house to talk about it.
She let out a sigh, "that… Might be my fault."
"How?" I asked.
She took a moment to gather her memories, "I told you why we had to flee Allarth?" I nodded, "I didn't just steal Brandewyn's crown that night."
My eyes widened in shock and she laughed lightly at my expression, "don't be so shocked. When you manage to break into a place so well protected as a King's treasure room, you take as much as you possibly can."
"Among the things that I stole was a long bone inside an ornate wooden box," Mother continued, "Neither I nor my fence knew it's value, but the fact that it was stored in the King's treasure room was enough to indicate it's high value. Unfortunately it also indicated how much trouble anyone possessing it might be in. I think I only got about a hundred gold swords for it."
"Well," I said, "I think that it's hardly your fault. Obviously something of such importance shouldn't have been just left lying around inside a treasure room, should it?'
Mother laughed and gave me a kiss on the forehead, "thank you, that's very true and exactly the way I used to think," she then added in a sing-song tone of voice while holding one finger up, "If they didn't want it stolen, they should have locked it up better."
We both laughed a little as we headed back inside.
The return to Easthaven on the last tenday of the month was good for me, as Mari joined us in the cart. She was very excited and spoke non-stop about her wedding plans (and her plan to have babies as soon as possible, which made both of our mother's choke a little.) Her excitement was contagious and by the time we reached Easthaven I found myself almost as excited for the coming wedding day as her. Tomas' family had already built them a new house in town, which was a tradition in Easthaven amongst those who lived in town. If she had married a farmer, then the father or the man would have built a house and set aside a portion of his farm or fenced off a portion of new farmland next door for the new family.
Malkarov and I spent the tenday working on enchantments and I finished up the day by carving an enchantment onto my staff to cast a Light spell. Malkarov checked my work and then asked me to double check it before I started carving, I thought he had asked me to double check because he had found something wrong so I spent quite a while looking for the mistake.
When I finally gave up and said with a huff, "I can't find it! What did I do wrong?"
He laughed and replied, "nothing. I just wanted you to make absolutely sure that you had it correct."
He then made me wait until I had 'calmed down' before I started carving.
The enchantment I had decided upon simply responded to the word 'Light', it seemed the easiest way to do it. Once I had completed the enchantment and hooked it up to the 'power bank' scheme, Malkarov instructed that I paint the runes in a particular order such that I finished with the connection to the power bank. As the last bit of silvery ink connected up to the existing rune scheme, the blue lights that lit up the power bank runes when it was first enchanted rushed along the new scheme I had added! In moments it was all done, fully powered and waiting for my command!
"Go on," Malkarov said with a laugh, "give it a try!"
I held the staff before me and commanded in a stern tone, "light!"
The end of the staff lit up with my signature black light arcing with purple lightning!
I jumped up and down excitedly and Malkarov joined in, we hugged and jumped and completely lost ourselves in the moment until we were both surprised by the clearing of a throat from behind us.
"Alladrial!" I exclaimed as I spun around, "look at my staff!"
Alladrial inspected my staff critically and nodded as he came across different parts, but then he held it out at arms length and pointed to a particular spot on the powerbank scheme, "what's this?"
"Ahhhhh," Malkarov said, "we don't… know?"
"You don't know?" Alladrial exclaimed, "what sort of reckless, foolhardiness…"
Malkarov put his finger to the taller elves lips to quiet him, "I'll tell you all about it later. In fact, after dinner why don't we all head downstairs with a hot drink and tell Alladrial everything that happened while we were away?"
Alladrial was not a lot happier after we related everything that had happened.
—-
1st-14th Day of Late Spring 768 n.c
—-
Malkarov and I spent the rest of the time in the lead up to Mari's wedding concentrating on potions, rituals and enchantments.
We linked enchantments and rituals together; I learned the ritual for Locate Object, Magic Circle Against Evil and Protection From Energy. Malkarov had me write out the rune schemes and enact each ritual then he had me write out a rune scheme that could be used to enchant an item with a similar benefit. That was a tricky task and took me about two full days for each magical effect. Once I had finished the rune scheme for Protection From Energy I asked Malkarov if I could enchant my staff with it. He was extremely happy at my request and we spent another day doing so. In the end I had a staff that not only could create light, granted a level of protection from fire to any person who held it (not to mention the staff itself.) Malkarov was curious at how much energy the 'power bank' was able to output. Depending upon the rune scheme the 'power bank' was hooked up to, the 'power bank' required different levels of magical energy put into it. The more powerful the effects, the more energy required. With the 'power bank' powered by the mysterious rune, we had no idea how much the 'power bank' could power. There seemed to be no sign of it coming close even with two extra rune schemes added to it.
I asked Malkarov if you could increase the 'power bank' size at a later date and he showed me two different ways to do so; You could introduce a second 'power bank' scheme to piggy-back onto the first one (which was easier) or you could enact a Recharge ritual to increase the level of magical power in the enchanted item. The Recharge ritual was quite involved and took quite a while to perform so it was generally considered better to just add a second 'power bank' scheme. The biggest problem was that for every enchantment past the first one onto an item, the amount of magical power required doubled. A second enchantment of a similar power level to the first would require twice as much power as the first one, a third enchantment would require four times as much. Because of this, it was often considered better just to enchant more items rather than put multiple enchantments onto the same item. With the strange 'power bank' scheme on my staff, we had no idea how many enchantments I'd be able to add in total.
I brewed a potion of climbing and a potion of fire resistance, which were both extremely tricky to do correctly and both required the strangest of components. The potion of fire resistance for instance required something Malkarov termed 'Fire elemental salts', which were apparently the residue left behind in very small quantities when something was summoned from the elemental plane of fire. It was extremely important that the salts not be contaminated with anything else, so they had to be collected very carefully. The potion of climbing required… 'gecko hairs'! I scoffed when Malkarov asked me to get them from his storage.
"Geckos?" I asked, "the lizard Geckos?"
"No, Gecko is the name of a barber in Castlemere," he responded so sincerely that I actually believed him until he laughed at me, "no! I'm joking. Yes, of course Gecko like the lizard."
"The lizard?" I asked again, "those little scaly hairless things?"
"Well, unlike some other lizards geckos don't actually have scales, but they do have hair on the bottoms of their feet," Malkarov explained, "now think of the size of a gecko and think of how many of them you need to get a full teaspoon of gecko hair for this potion."
The idea of being a full time wizard and part time lizard barber didn't really appeal to me, but Malkarov assured me that there were plenty of wizards and non-wizards who would farm geckos in order to get the gold from wizards willing to pay. These wizards would often sell potions of climbing for a large price in order to recoup the money from the components. Malkarov intended to sell my potions and scrolls to the Guild's store in Castlemere next time he was there. It was the traditional way for wizards to recoup some of the costs of taking on an apprentice, it was also expected that an apprentice would return to their master to learn more powerful spells as they increased their magic (and wealth!). It was also common to sell enchanted items that were enchanted by the apprentice, thus saving the Master from having to make a large magical sacrifice for monetary gain. With Shard's revelation however, the payment on the part of the apprentice could be substantially less than usual.
Shard joined us every night and was as kind, loving and attentive as ever. However, each time she came to me of a night-time, she was growing increasingly worried about Gruumsh.
"He's up to something," she said, "I'm sure of it. He's managing to keep it hidden somehow though, there's something there though, I just know there is!"
"There's no need to worry love," I told her before we went to bed, "if you are doing everything you can. He won't be able to keep it hidden from you for long."
