by Kyle Johnson
“Is it that obvious, Student?” he asked, remembering at the last moment to address the elf by their apparent rank. Wizards in the House of Stars were ranked according to their Mana Control Skill, which was an indicator of fine control rather than raw power. The orange tattoo meant the elf had reached the Student rank in that Skill and was supposed to be addressed as such. “What am I supposed to do?”
The elf smiled and held a hand out toward the column. “These pillars contain depictions of the Store’s current inventory,” he instructed. “Simply touch one, and you will see a visual representation of what the Store is offering for sale, separated into categories. Please note that only Novice-ranked Spells can be purchased here; the Store does not sell Spells of higher ranking.”
Just touch it, huh? Aranos thought silently, turning back toward the inscribed wooden column. He reached out with his hand and briefly brushed the wood; instantly, a screen filled his vision:
Welcome to the Store of the House of Stars!
As a member in good standing, you are welcome to access the items in this Store. All purchases can be completed at the main counter using currency or House credit.
As a member of Expert standing, you also have access to items that are labeled Restricted. Please note that the House of Stars is not responsible for accidents occurring from the use of Restricted items.
As the Patriarch of a House, you may use your House’s credit for any purchase.
Please select a category of items…
Aranos blinked as he read the wall of text. It looked like he could purchase items through this interface using gold or credit, and anything he bought would be brought up to the main counter for pickup. He didn’t know that he could use his House credit in place of actual currency; thinking about it, though, the term credit did sort of imply that should have been possible. Even so, it didn’t matter much since he didn’t plan on buying anything right now. He was just here looking.
This was a vastly different experience than shopping in the Great Square had been. There, he’d had to wander from vendor to vendor looking for items, and only the items on display were available for purchase. This method was certainly more efficient, but it also kind of disrupted the realism of the game. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not, to be honest.
“Originally, the stores of the major Guilds were more realistic,” Veronica’s voice spoke, sounding almost apologetic in his mind. “Each was the equivalent of a marketplace, with different sub-stores for weapons, armor, scrolls, etc. Players didn’t respond well; they said they were spending too much time trying to find the right merchant each time and wanted something more streamlined.”
I can see why someone might want that, Aranos agreed silently. I mean, this is definitely simpler than wandering around the Great Square, to be certain, and it’ll be faster, too. It just doesn’t have the same…atmosphere. The Great Square made me feel like I was in another world; this makes me feel like I’m in a game.
“I’ve noted your comments,” Veronica replied simply. “If we get enough people sharing the same feedback, then we’ll certainly make some changes.”
As her presence vanished from his mind, Aranos shook his head. That meant it probably wouldn’t be changing anytime soon; he figured most players wouldn’t want to lose the simplicity of this sort of interface just for a bit more atmosphere. After all, there was a reason that most games had this sort of setup for merchants; it was what players preferred.
He shook off the jarring nature of the interface and started exploring through it a bit more in-depth. He could flip through different classes of merchandise simply by willing it. He wasn’t surprised to see that the lists of weapons and armors were relatively short and didn’t offer anything substantial – this was a Guild for Wizards, after all – but he was surprised by how small the selection of Enchanted items was. He knew that the House gave instruction in Enchanting, and he’d assumed that any items the apprentices created would be sold through the Store to help fund the Guild. Yet, there only a handful of items for sale: a bunch of rings that gave minor Stat boosts, several amulets that boosted Spell Power or casting speed at the cost of increased casting cost, and a few Dueling Tunics that reduced magical damage but provided very little protection against physical attacks. There wasn’t even anything that he could buy and Deconstruct, hoping to gain the knowledge of how that particular Enchantment worked.
He turned his attention to Spell scrolls, and there, his expectations were satisfied. The list of Spells was extensive, large enough that it was broken into subsections based on the Spell’s primary mana type. There were Spells of the four elemental types, of course, as well as those that used light or life mana. There were composite Spells that used more than one mana type, like Acid Storm and Lava Blast; there were not, however, any Spells that utilized void mana, as far as he could tell. That made sense; from what he’d learned, Void Mages were pretty rare, since not many Wizards had the LP pool to use mana that literally devoured you from the inside out as you used it.
He wasn’t looking to buy anything; he was looking for inspiration. There were tons of simple Spells that he figured he could easily replicate, like Lightning Arc or Nova, which created a powerful blast of light to blind enemies. In fact, he could probably improve on those if he really tried. Lightning mana, for example, was hard to aim and had a base 50% chance of missing the target, but he had an idea how to use vacuum mana to create a conduit for the strike, sort of a path of least resistance in the most literal sense. The Nova Spell would certainly blind enemies, but it would be equally dangerous to allies; if he wanted to replicate that effect, he’d want to create more focused beams of light, like a laser, that would only blind whoever’s eyes they struck. Even simpler, he could just wrap a ball of Darkness mana around someone’s head and blind them that way, if he really wanted to.
Still, the listings were pretty useful. They not only gave a description of how the Spell would work and the purchase cost, they also detailed any aspects involved and had a list of minimum requirements a Wizard needed to meet to even cast the Spell, something that Aranos hadn’t realized was an issue for Wizards. Apparently, Wizards couldn’t just learn any Spell they wanted; certain Spells had specific requirements just to be cast. He guessed those requirements were based on things like the Spell’s complexity and power requirements. After all, if a spell-form was really complex, you’d need a certain Int Stat just to puzzle it out; if it needed a ton of energy dumped into it quickly, you’d need a high Mana Manipulation Skill; if it required significant control or lots of delicate balancing of the power flows, it would take a high Mana Control Skill to keep it stable. He wondered what would happen if a Wizard tried to cast a Spell beyond their ability; probably nothing good, he assumed.
Those simpler Spells weren’t what he was really interested in, though, although he did make notes of a few of them for later. He was looking for big, complex Spells, ones that would require multiple mana types and would be difficult to fashion. That was one advantage that his Class had over vanilla Wizards. If a Wizard encountered a Spell that was too powerful or complex for them because it required a higher Skill level in Mana Control or Mana Manipulation than they had, or one that needed more SP than they had, they simply couldn’t learn it.
He could craft Spells with as much power as he wanted, though; it just took a lot more time to do it. If a Spell required more SP to create than he could supply, he could craft it in stages. The Spell would wait indefinitely until he finished it, so long as he added more SP every few days to keep it going. He had two such Spells hanging right now: one that would create a ward around an area and one that could send a message to someone outside his current area. Crafting the first Spell would just be a matter of adding enough SP to it, but he didn’t know how he would be able to create the second one until he’d unlocked Enhanced aspects. He was pretty sure he’d need to use either mind or illusion mana to create the message, and some sort of spatial magic would be helpful in sending the message f
aster.
As he scrolled through the Spell offerings, a thought occurred to him. If he could craft a Spell that required more SP than he had available, why couldn’t he cast a Spell that required more SP than he had? Theoretically, he should be able to slowly trickle mana into a spell-form, basically channeling his natural SP regen into the Spell until it had enough power to activate. It would obviously take a lot longer, but it would allow him to cast a Spell that would affect, say, an entire city, or even a kingdom. That last one might take a year or so to cast, but it should be within the realm of possibility.
He put that thought aside for later and started focusing on composite Spells with high SP costs. A few minutes later, he had three that looked promising to him, and he read through the Spell descriptions carefully, trying to figure out which, if any, he could replicate:
Spell Scroll: Elemental Bombardment
Rank: Novice 1
Minimum Requirements: Int 35, Mana Control Adept 5
Aspects Needed: Air, Earth, Fire, Water
SP Cost: 2,619 base; 1048 / 4 extra projectiles
Duration: Instant
Description: With this Spell, a Wizard chooses a single spot out to sight range and rains elemental damage on all creatures within 30’ of that spot. This Spell creates 12 projectiles initially, three of each elemental type, and the caster can create more as desired by adding extra SP. Extra projectiles can only be conjured in batches of four, one of each elemental type. The projectiles fire automatically, 1 / s, and do 49 LP damage of that elemental type to all creatures within their blast radius. Once selected, the targeted spot cannot be changed by the Wizard.
Scroll Cost: 702 gold
Spell Scroll: Call Elemental
Rank: Novice 1
Minimum Requirements: Int 65, Mana Control Master 1
Aspects Needed: One element, Nature, Spirit
SP Cost: 11,714
Duration: 1 Day
Description: Upon casting this Spell, a Wizard creates a 10’ cube of one type of elemental matter, chosen at the moment of casting, and imbues it with temporary life and intelligence. The elemental created is bound to the Wizard for a full day and will serve to the best of its ability, including fighting in combat. If it is reduced to 0 LP, the elemental is banished and cannot return for 7 full days, so elementals rarely fight to the death if they can avoid it.
Scroll Cost: 1,432 gold
Spell Scroll: Calming Wind
Rank: Novice 1
Minimum Requirements: Int 50, Mana Control Expert 1
Aspects Needed: Air, Mind
SP Cost: 3,170
Duration: 10 minutes
Description: When casting this Spell, a Wizard creates a gentle breeze that swirls through an area up to 60’ in radius. Any creature in this area, including the caster, must make an opposed check to take any violent or aggressive action: the creature’s [Cha + Level] versus the caster’s [Int + Level]. The caster gets a +1 bonus to this check for every 10 levels of this Spell. A new check must be made every time a creature attempts a new aggressive action. Affected creatures can freely move out of the area and can make attacks from beyond the radius of the Spell on those within it.
Scroll Cost: 780 gold
Aranos quickly added some notes as he read through the Spell descriptions. The first Spell he knew he could create; it used aspects he’d already unlocked, and he could see ways to replicate its effects. In fact, he had a feeling he might be able to improve on those effects. It was sort of a “fire and forget” version of his Elemental Barrage Spell, one that affected a much larger area and couldn’t be targeted, and he could imagine adding the ability to shift targets or to fire more than one projectile at once to do composite mana damage. He could see uses for something like that, especially when attacking fortified positions.
The other Spells, though, were beyond him right now. Seeing them was a good motivator, though, since one weakness of the Spells he’d crafted was that they lacked subtlety. He could paralyze a creature or weaken them, but he couldn’t calm down a raging monster or summon a spirit to guard his party while they slept. He needed to make discovering his Enhanced aspects a priority; they would undoubtedly open up entirely new avenues of magic for him. Still, he jotted down the Spell descriptions and effects. While he couldn’t create them now, he would probably be able to replicate them eventually, and having an idea of the kinds of things he might be able to do with Enhanced mana would jump-start the process once he’d unlocked one or two new aspects.
He closed the window and stepped back from the pillar, moving aside as an elf slipped forward to stand where he’d just been. In addition to the more complex Spells, he’d noted a half-dozen simpler ones whose effects were things he could replicate but had never thought to. Many of the Wizard Spells, he was surprised to notice, were designed to affect people or things other than the caster, such as a Spell that strengthened someone’s existing armor, or one that granted another a brief boost of Speed. That was an area he had simply overlooked: he had Spells that did damage, and ones that empowered him, but he really only had a couple that would boost his party members. Fortunately, most of those Spells seemed easy enough to replicate, so it was an oversight he could quickly repair.
After his foray to the Store was done, Aranos willed his tattoo to guide him to the Library. As he approached the heavy doors barring the center of learning, he held up his left hand before the door’s access rune. He felt a small surge of power race from his palm to the rune and back, and the doors began to swing slowly open. He still hadn’t fully decoded that runeform, although he also hadn’t really tried very hard. From what he’d pieced together, the runeform itself didn’t hold the door closed or open it. Instead, it seemed to disrupt whatever effect did keep the door shut; he didn’t know if the effect was then reversed, making the door swing open that way, or if another Enchantment or runeform was actually opening the large portal. It didn’t really matter; he hadn’t really had a door he’d wanted to keep shut that badly so far, so while he had a snapshot of the runeform, it wasn’t high on his list of things to examine.
The Library was a vast space, the largest single area Aranos had yet seen in the House of Stars, and it was filled with rows and rows of books. Tables and workbenches were scattered throughout, each with scatterings of elves sitting alone or in small groups, reading and talking quietly to one another. Aranos walked swiftly into the stacks, wandering until he found a space that was relatively unobtrusive, and took a deep breath.
“Grandmaster Ruehnar,” he spoke softly, his voice barely audible even in the quiet of the hushed surroundings, “I’ve got something I think you’d be interested in hearing about and a favor to ask.”
“That is somewhat more likely with you than with most others in this House, Lord Evenshade,” a calm, unruffled voice spoke from behind Aranos. The aleen turned around and saw the ancient Head Librarian step out from between two rows of books. Where he’d come from, Aranos had no clue; Ruehnar claimed that he knew everything that happened and heard everything that was said in his Library, and he seemed to be able to appear anywhere within it instantly. Whether that was an effect of the Library itself or an Ability of the bald, wizened elf, Aranos couldn’t say.
“Yet, it is still unlikely, in all fairness, as there is very little I have not seen nor witnessed in my years. Perhaps you will surprise me, though. Tell me what you must first, and we will see if it will influence my decision about the requested favor.”
Since Ruehnar was by far the oldest-looking elf Aranos had yet seen, the Sorcerer didn’t doubt that it took a great deal to catch him off-guard. He’d only seen it happen once, when the elf had found out that Keryth had enslaved Dirue, and that one moment of pique had honestly terrified Aranos. The calm, lazy-sounding façade hid a deep and unfathomable well of power that Aranos hoped one day to merely approach, much less equal.
Aranos quickly described the encounters he and his party had the night before, and what he’d seen in the forest that morning
. The elf listened patiently, finally shaking his head.
“I am fairly certain I know what is happening, Aranos. No, I will not tell you,” he held up a hand, smiling gently. “If I am correct – and doubtless I am – then this is a mystery well within your abilities to solve, and maybe an interesting challenge for you.”
A blinking, blue notification appeared in Aranos’ vision, but he ignored the new notification. “My party and I are leaving soon for Antas. We won’t be able to investigate this, so I wanted to make sure the House of Stars was aware. Plus, I was thinking that maybe the other Travelers in Eredain could look into it, if you don’t mind.”
Ruehnar nodded his head thoughtfully. “Indeed, young Geltheriel’s Cleansing Quest. Surely, that must take priority. And yet, had you looked at my proffered Quest, you would know that it is likely too difficult for those other bands of Travelers, unless they have come much farther than I would deem possible since I saw them last.”
“I was thinking of offering it to all of them, together, sir,” Aranos grinned. “You’re right that individually, they’d probably be overmatched, but together? They might have a chance.”
“And I assume that your companions are presenting this to their Houses, as well?” Ruehnar asked, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. When Aranos nodded, the old elf continued, “Then I must adjust the offered reward, for surely those of the Houses of Blades, Twilight, and the Sickle will offer similar Quests.” The elf frowned for a moment before nodding his head. “There, that should be appropriate. Examine the Quest and see if it seems fair.”
Aranos pulled up the new notification and smiled inwardly as he read it:
Quest Offered: A Gathering of Darkness
Grandmaster Ruehnar of the House of Stars calls upon all Traveler Wizards to investigate the strange behavior of the Shadowborn near Eredain.
Objective: Discover the cause of the strange attacks by the Shadowed creatures near Eredain.
