A Mage Prepared

by Thomas Whipple

  I really want to try it out, but first I need to handle my own distribution. The talent point is easy after I saw the new one available in my dimension magic branch. I need a few more levels to get Folded Space though so I use the TP from this one to max out my Dimensional Storage ability. I take a few minutes to think about it while Azzaria continues to prepare a warm dinner. After getting a boost to my HP from my Subclass I want to focus on my power and endurance for spell casting. I also realize that my magical defenses will be improved by it making my shield harder to break, and last longer. Decided, I add two SP to both INT and WIS. Some people may hold back their SP for some unknown situation where it will do minimal good to hastily assign them, but I don't think you are really the level you show if you don't assign them. Plus, maybe the SP you didn't spend earlier would have helped you prevent the dire situation you fear from happening in the first place. That said, I will always spend it as soon as it is practical, with a rational mind. Looking at my total MP now it is looking quite respectable at 765 MP total after gear and all, but that seems a little higher than I thought it should be. Then I remembered my new title, before focusing on it to get the details.

  Title: Bound to Power

  Having been bound to a Mana Fount you now gain +5 MP per level.

  That explains it. Having finished the necessary task of completing my level up I get up and head over to where Azzaria is cooking. "How's it coming?" She looks up at me from the fire and smiles a little, happy to see me join her. "It's almost done. With what we had left that was fresh I could only make a stew." I give her a little side hug before responding. "Your stew is great! Although I might not be the best judge at the moment considering how sick of trail rats I am." She giggles a little before her face gets serious. "Are you stating that my stew probably sucks but you are too hungry to notice?" I chuckle at her attempt but it is not good enough. "I might be worried if it wasn't for that little twitch at the corner of your mouth that suggests you are trying not to smile. I would like to remind you that I quite enjoyed your stew before as well, when we weren't eating trail rations for an extended period." She mock pouts at me after ruining her fun. "Aaaahhh, your no fun." I chuckle again before giving her a full hug this time. "Sorry I keep doing that. I guess I am just a hugger, and after all this" I wave my hands around to emphasize my point "I think I am just excited to be headed back to complete the quest." She gives a little blush before turning her head a little away from me. "Don't worry about it. It has been a long time since someone has shown me such casual affection. I think I can get used to it." The blush on her face says that she is enjoying the attention though.

  We all eat our meal and Timbre particularly liked it. I had to clean off the mouth of the dire wolf with some water we got from the river earlier. I was able to successfully lock the doors to the suite when we entered, so I set the Ward Stone and we all lay down for the night. Timbre takes the spot next to my bedroll, as usual. Thia uses Timbre as a bed, even in her larger form. I lay next to Timbre and Azzaria comes to lie next to me. "Vol?" she says to me before turning from her back to look at me. "Yes?" She opens her mouth to say something but stops. After a second she continues "Don't scare me like earlier, OK?" While turning to my side to look at her I reach out a hand and caress her cheek. "From everything I have seen of this world so far it seems to me that it's a dangerous place. I plan on getting strong enough to protect you and anyone else I care about from that kind of world. I can't promise to not put myself in danger again. I can, however, promise to be better and do everything in my power to make sure that you and I both get through anything we face together." She still doesn't look convinced. "Promise me you will be as careful as you can then." It's an order instead of a question this time. A demand that I can't deny in the face of that worried look in her eyes. "I promise." After that she turns away from me and presses her back to my chest.

  Chapter 14

  It was the most pleasant way to wake up that I had experienced since coming to this world. Warm fur on my back and something warm snuggled up against my chest. Still groggy from sleep I try to feel what is against my chest with the arm draped over it. My hand feels something squishy but not unpleasant under it. Then I heard a slight moan while the thing against my chest breaths out. Snapping awake I move my hand away from the pleasant squishy object to a little disappointed sound from Azzaria, who is absolutely plastered against my front. My sudden movement seems to have woken her because she stirs a little and then grabs my hand that is now on her belly. Then she pulls it tight forcing me to hug her a little tighter, not that I mind. After a second she rolls away and starts to get up. I look around and see that it's still early morning from the light coming in off the balcony, but the sun is well up over the horizon. "You slept later than usual" I say to the messy haired elf. Damn, it even looks cute all messed up like that too. I must have it bad, or she really is that good looking, or both.

  She smirks at catching me checking her out again. Then she stretches her lithe body up and stands on her tip toes, I'm sure to tease me a little. "I was very comfortable." Shaking my head I respond "My sentiments exactly." I start to think over what we need to do before we leave and I remember that I got distracted with dinner last night. "Azzaria, I am going to do something and I want to warn you because I have only a small idea of what will happen. Thia and I are going to try out the new skill she got from her level last night. It's called Merge." Looking at me warily she nods her head for me to go ahead. In my mind I say "Thia, are you ready to try this?" What I get back from her isn't words, but a jumbled confirmation mixed with a fair amount of excitement. "Alright Merge now Thia." When I give her the go ahead she takes off from the back of Timbre. She does a circle around the room and then turns toward me, headed straight for my chest. Oddly enough I just know that this is how it works and not to move. Just before she slams into my chest she starts to glow with golden light.

  When she does hit me I don't feel anything because it's like she was no longer physical and enters my chest. At the moment of entry I can feel the consciousness that is Thia much closer in my mind. Before, it was like we communicated down a tunnel where we could see and speak to each other, but now it is like we are two parts of the same mind, perfectly in sync. There is a something in her thoughts that is a little uncomfortable for me, but there is nothing to do about it and it isn't really an issue anyway. I think I am glowing now too, and I can feel my body changing. It isn't a lot, I just feel lighter and there is a pressure building up on my back over the shoulders. When the pressure reaches a point that is painful there is a sharp pain followed by the release of the pressure. I also hear a ripping sound before I feel a little off balance and have to lean forward slightly. This all takes only a matter of seconds before it's over and I stop glowing.

  Looking over to Azzaria I catch her with her mouth wide open as she stares at something behind me. Turning my head to get a look I see a flash of gold that moves out of my vision before I get a good look at it. "Wings" is all that Azzaria can say in her shock. Understanding dawns on me and I make a conscious effort, causing the gold object to move into my vision again. It looks like one of Thia's wings only much larger and attached to me. Understanding of how to use it floods me from the Thia part and I flap them a couple of times. "Cool," that about sums it up. I only have less than 2 minutes in this form so I need to get used to its capabilities. Facing to the side I flap one of the wings and fire off a metallic feather at the wall. It zips across the room and embeds itself in the stone. Experimenting, I find that I can launch my own spells and now use Thia's skills as well. Best of all, everything is even more powerful. The last part of my time merged with Thia I spend flying around the room. It's a little awkward at first because it isn't the same as when Thia flies, but I get used to it. It isn't nearly as fast as Thia can fly but I can use it to get around during battle or to help dodge. The other thing is that I can bring my wing in front of my body to shield myself from attack with the metal-like feathers. Just as I'm about to ask
Azzaria to throw something at me to test, she has been staring mouth agape most of this time, the timer ends. I can feel myself get heavier and the wings shrink down before they are their normal size. A glowing Thia falls off my back still attached to them. I stumble due to the disorienting change and I can see that Thia is similarly affected.

  "Well, the dismount needs a little work, that is for sure." Looking down at Thia, she takes a minute before she gets her senses back. When she does get up she immediately flaps her wings and goes back to her spot on the back of Timbre, exhausted. "I guess it wears her out. That is something to remember if I need to use that in a fight." Azzaria has also recovered by this point and walks up to me. "That was impressive, but the time it takes to change and then recover after leaves you open. If you ever use that in a battle you better get the space to do it." I nod to her "You read my mind." I walk over to the wall that I stuck three feathers into from the large wings I had. The feathers are proportionally as big. I yank them out of the wall with a little difficulty and take a look at them. Maybe they can be used with the other stuff to make my staff? I put them in storage and then inspect the marks they made in the wall. That reminds me about one of the spell books that we found. I pull it out and use it before checking out the details of my new spell.

  You have successfully learned the spell Shape Earth.

  Shape Earth: Allows user to shape the earth to his will. The changes are permanent and because of this it is slow and mana intensive. Duration: Channeled. Cost: 5MP/sec.

  Maybe I can fix the wall with this. Focusing on the deep grooves left by the sharp feathers I mentally activate the Earth Shape spell. It takes a few seconds while I feel the mana drain away but the damage fills in with stone and looks good as new. Still, it was slow and cost about 30 MP to complete the repairs. It might be faster if I raise the level of my earth magic but it's obvious it wasn't designed for combat. Still very useful though. After that we pack our things and head out. As we walk out of the door to the room Azzaria stops, causing me to almost walk into her. "What's up?" I ask her as I go into a ready state, expecting some enemy to attack us at any moment. She points to the side at the door for the master suite that we were leaving. There is a new design there. We step into the hall and I close the doors to get a look at the full picture. There on the door is me, only not how I am right now. It shows me with golden wings raised up and stretched across the whole doorway. My hands are out to the sides at 45 degree angles downward. The hand on the left has golden arcs of electricity flowing around it while the one on the right is covered in fire.

  "What do you think caused this?" I ask Azzaria. She shakes her head in a way that makes me think she is trying to clear away the thoughts she was having. "I think it's because you claimed the Mana Fount. Seeing this I think that the door here and the one that guards the fount will update according to your achievements. Sort of like a running mural of your life. That's just a guess though. We will have to see if it changes again in the future." I guess that explains the disturbing art that once adorned that door. We leave the top floor and in the large hall on the second floor we see a similar mural from upstairs on the door to the altar. Before we head down I stop Azzaria with a hand on her shoulder. "I want to check to see if any more possessed entered since we went to bed last night." With that, all four of us start to search the floor for any enemies. We didn't find any on the second floor but there was a couple on the bottom floor. They were all alone so they were easy to deal with and no one got injured. When done inside my new residence, we cleared out the few that had come close to the entrance outside.

  With the area clear of enemies for the time being , I walk up to the entrance of the cave and look up and to the right. The balcony from the third floor suite is created in a way that makes it impossible to see from the ground. From farther away I bet it just looks like a indentation in the cliff face. Turning my head back to the entrance I concentrate and use Shape Earth again. It's slow going but I raise a two foot thick wall of stone to block the entrance. It cost me nearly all of my mana to do that and over a minute and a half. Definitely won't be creating stone walls in the middle of combat with this. There is probably a spell for that already that is far more practical. A little dizzy from the large expenditure of mana, I lean against the wall I just raised and take a seat on the ground. Azzaria runs up and kneels on the ground next to me. "Are you ok Vol?" I put a hand over the one she set on my shoulder and say "Yeah, I'll be fine in a few minutes. I nearly drained all my mana with that and I just need to recover. Should take a little less that 20 minutes for my mana fill up but we can leave earlier."

  After about 15 minutes we get up. We check the village and the surrounding area for any more possessed and deal with them. Azzaria says now that the queen is dead, and all the eggs have been destroyed, they can't reproduce any more. That just means we have to clear out the ones that are still out there but we won't have to worry about another resurgence of beetles. I still want to clear out as many as I can on our way back though. The day is fairly uneventful as we head south down the strip of land between the cliff and river. We fought more of the possessed but as I am higher level than them I barely gain anything other than the few copper they have on them. When we get to where we forded the river it's early afternoon so we cross and head into the forest. We aren't seeing any more organized patrols or anything, just random encounters. So, when we set up camp for the night we light a fire and cook a meal with meat from a level 5 Hare that we came across. I think more animals are moving back into the area now that the beetle possessed have been eliminated. I don't know what else might return though.

  I briefly pull up my messages to see what improved. I got one level in my Water and Fire type magic. I made sure that I was using them as often as possible today during our fights because I need to practice. Back at Bolden's shop I noticed that there were more spells for the different types of magic than what I got, but the requirements were level 5 or higher in the magic type. With the amount of use I get out of Earth Spike and using the higher level spell Earth Shape my Earth magic also reached level 6. Thia also gained a level in Ride the Lightning and Knifewings. That's all that is new in the messages and I think it's about time that I sort out the TP I have in my profession. I open the menu for my profession's talent tree and the first four options are Disenchant, Enchant Power, Focus, and Set Charges. I cap disenchant because it will allow me to learn enchantments, and Focus because it will allow me to enchant items that can be used to cast magic. That is something I want to do to the staff I am planning to have made. That takes a total of 4 TP so I put a point into Enchant Power. The next tier in the tree for Disenchant is Spells to Enchants, which will allow me to enchant items with spells that I know and then to learn spells from enchantments in the second tier. I also cap out the Amplifier talent which improves the Focus one. Having only used 9 of my 11 points I place another into Enchant Power to cap it and to have access to the Active Skill/Spell talent after it.

  Disenchant 3/3: The Enchanter uses this to learn the enchantment that is on an Item. Will destroy the item. 75% base chance to learn an enchantment. Base chance to learn is altered by the enchanters WIS, INT, Enchanting lvl, and the complexity of the enchantment being studied.

  Spells to Enchants 2/2: Allows for the use of a known spell for enchanting. Chance to learn a spell from disenchanting an item. Chance based on WIS, INT, Enchanting lvl, and whether the enchanter meets spell requirements.

  Focus 1/1: Allows the Enchanter to make an item a magical focus, if the material can support it.

  Amplifier 2/2: Turns the Item into a magic amplifier. Allows for 100% of potential to be manifested. Materials determine the potential.

  Enchant Power 2/2: Allows the enchanter to use more mana during enchanting to increase the strength of the enchantment by up to 50%.

  Active Skill/Spell 1/1: Allows for an additional skill or spell to be added to the item.

  Having put my profession in order, I take out a regular short sword that w
e took from one of the possessed we fought before. Focusing on my Enchanting skill I can feel the information I got when I chose the profession unfold in my mind. Enchanting is a lot like when I delay a spell. I have to bring the mana forward and shape it like I am going to cast a spell, but right before casting it I channel it into the item but continue to hold it. At that point there is a spell formation that I need to add which locks the pattern in the object. I start by using the new pattern I got when I got the Amplifier talent. The result was not good. Less than one percent increase to spells focused through the sword. I guess iron is not the best medium for spell casting. Next I tried enchanting with Burning palm. That turned out a little better. The sword would heat up but it cost a lot of mana and didn't actually catch fire. Good thing this is just practice in order to bring my enchanting level up. I want it to be 5 or higher when I enchant the staff I plan on getting made. There is a talent in the third tier that allows the removal of an enchantment without damaging the item I plan to get next level I gain. That will allow me to upgrade the enchantment on it as I go.

  I enchant constantly with the gear we stuffed into my Dimensional Storage until the food is ready. I kept trying different things, which I think helped how quickly I leveled up my Enchanting. When we ate I checked the messages that appeared during my little enchanting session. I gained two levels in enchanting. After we finish eating Azzaria turns to me and says "What will you do now that you have the area around the Mana Fount as your own? Will you go back after turning in the quest?" Looking at her I shrug before asking her a question in return. "What do you want to do? I won't be leaving you unless you want me to." That gets a little blush from her. "Let's just play it by ear for now. Despite what Serin has been doing to alienate you from the rest of the village you do have people who care about you there. I wouldn't ask you to leave them." We lay next each other again and the four of us get some sleep.