Finn’s eyes widened. Brutus knew that the Seer had given him the mark? His questions began bubbling to the surface again. “You know about the Seer?” Finn whispered under his breath.
“Unfortunately,” Brutus grunted, before meeting Finn’s eyes. “Although, most here call her the Crone. Exercise caution with that one. Her gifts always come with a price. Always.”
“But what—” Finn began.
The fire mage shook his head, interrupting him. “You have enough problems right now. You need to focus. Remember what I said. Neither the students nor the faculty are your friends here. I would only speak plainly with Abbad or myself. Or, hell, just keep your secrets to yourself. Better not to trust anyone.” That last statement didn’t seem entirely for Finn’s benefit, Brutus’ eyes going distant for a moment.
With a shake of his head, the fire mage smacked Finn on the back. “Now, go on inside and get yourself that damn spellbook.” He started down the hall, calling over his shoulder. “And tell Charlotte that I said hello!”
Finn’s eyes followed Brutus as he walked away. He felt like he had come no closer to answering any of the questions that were still tumbling through his head. However, the fire mage was right about one thing. He needed to get that spellbook and use the rest of the evening to prepare for the duels tomorrow.
With a sigh, Finn yanked at the nearby door and stepped inside.
Only to stop short in shock.
The room on the other side was complete and spectacular chaos. Robes fluttered and flew through the air, guided along by streams of current that were almost invisible to the eye, revealed only by a slight shimmer of yellow. The floor of the room wasn’t much better. Rows upon rows of wooden shelves displayed all manner of armor, staves, wands, swords, daggers, and trinkets. Yet there was no discernible rhyme or reason to their placement. A massive stone hammer was placed beside a delicate bracelet, but on the other side of the rack was a smoldering staff. The items went on like that for as far as he could see.
The room was also practically filled to the brim with other mages, the crowd perusing the equipment. A dull roar, the product of dozens of voices speaking at once, filled the air. As Finn noted this, a lance of electricity suddenly shot through the room, arcing directly toward him. He dodged to the side quickly, the bolt splashing against the wooden door, but failing to damage the wood.
The room is warded? Finn wondered.
“Sorry!” someone shouted from the crowd.
“What the hell is this?” Finn murmured.
“Hello-and-welcome-to-the-guild-requisition-hall! I-am-part-of-the-requisition-staff!” an energetic young man declared, popping up in front of Finn. He spoke so quickly that Finn struggled to understand him.
The man didn’t wait for Finn to respond, tugging at the sleeve of his left arm and revealing his tattoos. “Ahh-a-novice-fire-mage. Recent-by-the-looks-of-the-mark! That-means-you’ll-need-to-chat-with-Charlotte-before-you-can-make-any-purchases!
“Come with me!”
And then the aide was winding through the crowd. Finn could at least piece together a few important bits of information from the man’s frenetic introduction. This was apparently the guild requisition hall, which meant Finn could possibly purchase gear here…
Or a spellbook.
Not wanting to lose the man in the crowd, Finn hesitated only a second before following the aide. He kept a watchful eye out for the idiot mages around him as they half jogged through the clusters of other students. He didn’t love the idea of getting fried trying to purchase equipment. Although, he was distracted by the assortment of gear littering the room; armor and weapons glowed with a faint sheen. His fingers practically itched to get his hands on some of this loot.
I’m surprised Julia hasn’t raided the place already, he thought to himself.
His thoughts were interrupted as a guttural growl came from Finn’s left. Acting on instinct, he leaped to the side. Claws swiped through the space he had been occupying only a moment before. Finn’s eyes went wide as he took in the row of cages along the nearby wall. What appeared to be some sort of miniature chimera glared at him from behind the bars, each of its three heads trained on Finn. Dozens more eyes stared at him from nearby. He saw glowing crystals, slick scales, and thick fur among the shadows of the cages.
“Mind-the-pets-they-can-be-quite-dangerous,” the aide said in a rapid-fire pitter-patter of words, before taking back off through the crowd again.
Finn just shook his head. Yet he followed the young man, now giving the cages a wide berth.
A few moments later, the aide deposited him in front of a counter on the far end of the room. “Here-you-are! Have-a-great-day!” he said and then immediately vanished back into the crowd.
“Real pain in the ass, aren’t they?” someone groused from behind Finn. He whirled to find a woman sitting behind the counter, resting her chin on one palm, and watching the rest of the room with weary resignation. To Finn’s eyes, she must have been in her mid-thirties. Copper hair framed a face that spoke of lack of sleep, heavy circles hanging under her eyes.
“Uh…” he began, not sure what the woman meant by her question.
“The Merchant Guild instituted this new system to provide more incentive to our staff,” she continued, waving at the room. “The aides now get compensated for each person they help instead of getting paid by the hour. The result is this circus. Fast-talking idiots that dump someone in front of a rack and then take off like a damn dragon is on their ass.”
Another spell hurtled across the room, this time a massive Fireball, directed straight at the robes that drifted through the air. The woman sighed, her fingers twining through a series of gestures. A sphere of shimmering yellow light suddenly encircled the flaming orb, the fire winking out.
“And this is also how we get travelers accidentally launching spells in my hall,” the woman muttered, rubbing at her eyes. “Do you know how much damaged merchandise has resulted from this idiotic policy change? Not that this ridiculous competition has helped matters either…”
“So, you’re a member of the Merchant Guild?” Finn asked cautiously as her rant began to die down.
The woman’s eyes trained on him once again, her head tilting. “Indeed. The Merchant Guild is responsible for all sales that occur within the city walls – whether magical or mundane. A distribution of power intended to maintain a system of checks and balances. At least, that’s how the Emir sold it to the guilds.”
She leaned forward, speaking in a hushed voice. “The result is more like a polite cold war. I swear Nefreet would push me out given half a chance. The man would likely rather see you lot beat each other to death with your bare hands than give up an ounce of power to the merchants.”
“Huh,” Finn said. Between the dilapidated crafting area on the northern side of the campus and Charlotte’s explanation, he was beginning to see a pattern. It seemed the Emir was desperate to restrain the mages’ power. Although, he also noted that Charlotte seemed to be an air mage. There was apparently some cross-guild recruiting going on as well.
“Anyway, I’m sure you’re not here for my bitching. My name is Charlotte. I’m responsible for this shit show, even if I had nothing to do with creating it.” She peered at him. “I take it you’re a novice? Recent class change?”
“Yeah,” Finn said. “Brutus said I could purchase a spellbook here.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Brutus, huh? How is he doing?”
“Uh, alright, I guess,” Finn offered noncommittally. “He told me he says hello.”
Charlotte nodded, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Always the gentleman.”
Are we talking about the same guy? Finn wondered.
“Anyway, here is your bag,” she offered, handing over a plain leather satchel. “Standard issue for all novices.” As Finn took the bag, he didn’t see anything particularly remarkable about it. Just scuffed leather, like it had seen some prior use.
“It’s more interesting than it lo
oks,” Charlotte added, noting Finn’s skeptical expression. “The interior has been enchanted. It can hold up to about a hundred pounds. Bit bigger on the inside than it looks,” she offered, snatching the bag from him, and sticking her arm inside. The limb went in up to her shoulder, which seemed physically impossible given its dimensions. Then she tossed it back to him.
“Anyway, you mentioned a spellbook,” she continued as Finn stared at the bag, sticking his hand inside experimentally. Charlotte stepped out from around the counter. “I can show you over to the spellbooks. Just let me ward the room first to make sure they don’t burn it down.”
Finn stood still – the novelty of the bag forgotten as he stared at Charlotte. His attention was captured by the woman’s legs. In place of normal flesh and blood, Charlotte moved along on a set of spider-like mechanical limbs, each tapping at the stone floor and giving off a small shower of sparks. Even more interesting, the mechanical limbs seemed to be connected to her torso and Finn couldn’t see that she used any sort of controls. It was almost as though the extremities had been connected directly to her nervous system.
A cough interrupted his thoughts, and Finn looked up to find Charlotte staring at him, her formerly friendly expression now grim. “Eyes up here,” she snapped.
Finn raised his hands. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any offense. I was just surprised is all. Brutus didn’t mention your legs.”
He hesitated, his eyes drifting back to the mechanical limbs. “I… I know from personal experience how hard it is to lose a limb,” he added his eyes clouding. The limbs only served to remind Finn that his crippled body was hooked up to a headset right now – that this was an illusion.
Charlotte’s expression had softened when Finn met her eyes again. “Well, in that case, why don’t we just ignore that bit and go find you a spellbook?”
Finn just nodded, catching on to the subtext of her statement. She didn’t feel like talking about her legs. He could certainly relate.
“There’s just one thing I need to do first…” Charlotte murmured as she turned back to the room, her hands already twining through the gestures of a spell. Wind gusted through the shelves, whipping among the players and NPCs that crowded the racks. Suddenly, the noise vanished, leaving only a deathly silence in its wake. Dozens of heads whipped toward where Charlotte stood, their eyes wide.
“Any of you lot break anything while I’m gone, and I will kill you slowly and painfully,” Charlotte said into this silence, her tone even and deadly serious. “Do we all understand each other?”
Nods all around the room.
Charlotte glanced at Finn. “Alright, we’re ready to go!”
Finn couldn’t help but glance back at the room as Charlotte led the way to a door along the far wall. She had left the spell in place, many people trying to speak or groping at their throats but no sound escaping. He idly considered that she could just as easily have cut off their ability to breathe.
Don’t mess with Charlotte. Got it, he thought to himself.
“Here we go,” Charlotte offered once they crossed into the side room. “Spellbooks. These are actually copies of the original workbooks. Each one contains a few basic spells. They’re also organized by affinity. The novice stuff is all out in the open, which is all you can purchase right now. Each one costs 25 points. Journeyman and higher spellbooks are kept in the back. You won’t be able to enter those sections without a token.”
“Huh,” Finn murmured, eyeing the room. “Why aren’t these books in the library?”
He glanced over to find Charlotte looking at him incredulously. “So that any student can just start trying to hurl around whatever spell they feel like? You saw those idiots in there. The whole guild would be a madhouse. Honestly, this is one of the few policies of Nefreet’s I actually agree with. You’ve got to dole out this sort of information slowly.”
Finn cocked his head. That sort of made sense, although it made him wonder what purpose the library served then. Clearly, it held other information. For example, it had contained the materials he had used to learn Veridian. However, Abbad had also alluded to restricted levels of the library.
Maybe Nefreet just controlled the type and quantity of spells that were disseminated to the students and those restricted levels contained more detailed information on spellcasting? He would have to try to remember to ask the librarian about that the next time he saw him.
Finn turned his focus back to the books. He picked up a nearby tome, the cover glowing a faint orange. With gentle fingers, he flipped it open to find Veridian scrawled down the page, along with a description of various hand gestures – crude pictures providing more detail. There were also notes scrawled in the margins – along with some diagrams that Finn had never seen before.
Charlotte smacked his hand, snapping the book shut. “There’s no reading in the stacks. That’s part of why students aren’t allowed back here without a chaperone. You can study the books after you’ve bought them.”
Finn grimaced. His eyes skimmed to the rest of the fire spellbooks on the nearby shelf. They all seemed to be copies of the same workbook – at least from what he could tell based on the symbols on the cover. He kept the one in his hand. That was an easy choice.
Yet Finn hesitated as he eyed the books for the other affinities. Should he purchase a few more? If he was going to get his spellcrafting mod to work, he might need a larger sample group of spells. That would likely help him identify what he was doing wrong.
At the same time, each book cost him about three wins’ worth of points – points that he might be better off hoarding or spending on other gear. He could still remember the room filled with weapons and armor. He chewed on his lip in indecision. Yet the ability to create new spells was likely worth far more than some novice equipment and might give him an edge over other students.
Making an abrupt decision, Finn grabbed another three books – one for each of the elemental affinities and turned back to Charlotte. She eyed him curiously.
“Okay, this should do it,” Finn declared, hefting the stack of books.
Charlotte arched an eyebrow. “You know you likely won’t be able to use those other books,” she explained. “It’s extremely difficult to learn spells outside your primary affinity.”
Finn shrugged, trying to think of an excuse. Then it suddenly came to him. “If what you said is true – that Nefreet ensures that only select spells are provided to the students – that means that these books likely contain all of the spells that the novices know.” Finn met Charlotte’s eyes. “That could give me an edge. If I study these other books, I’ll know what spells my opponents will be able to use and their limitations. Information is power, after all.”
“Huh, well at least Brutus picked a student with a head on his shoulders,” she replied, grudging respect shining in her eyes. “I always enjoyed the fact that he didn’t suffer stupid. We have that in common.
“Speaking of which, let’s go,” Charlotte declared, turning back to the door leading into the requisition hall. “I doubt my spell will keep that lot distracted for long.”
Finn followed her, his mind already a million miles away. His thoughts were only on the spellbooks in his hand and the brief glimpse he had caught of those handwritten notes in the margins. His eyes skimmed down to the books.
Maybe he had finally found the key to building his own spells. He hoped so. He suspected he was going to need an edge come tomorrow morning.
Chapter 22 - Studious
Finn sat cross-legged in the middle of the barren training room.
He could feel excitement bubbling in his chest as he opened the fire spellbook. The title of the book was missing, and only the author’s first name was listed on the cover. That was a little odd. Finn had expected something that looked like a formal textbook. Perhaps the spellbooks were just copies and the original version had been damaged?
Or maybe Nefreet is trying to hide information, he thought.
Finn’s gaze focused on th
e author’s name. “Bilel.” A quick glance at the other three books indicated that the same mage had written all three tomes. That was another interesting note. Had the author mastered multiple affinities?
There was only one way to find out.
Finn flipped forward to the first few pages of the fire spellbook, his eyes skimming the contents as he devoured the book hungrily. He soon lost track of time, the world around him bleeding away until his entire universe was a mixture of arcane symbols and poorly scrawled notes. Once he was done with one book, he idly groped for another, losing himself in his studies.
When he looked up again, Finn noticed that hours had passed in-game. He snapped the last book shut. His eyes were distant as he stared blankly at a nearby wall, struggling to process the implications of what he’d read.
First things first.
“Spellbook,” Finn said aloud. The mod’s UI immediately popped up in his vision.
Finn’s fingers began to twine through a new series of gestures, the images from the fire spellbook seemingly burned into his mind’s eye. It felt almost effortless to recall the requisite incantation, although he wasn’t certain whether this was a product of his enhanced learning abilities in-game or the countless hours spent in training.
As he spoke, a ball of flame suddenly erupted in the air beside Finn, growing quickly until it was almost the size of a basketball. Finn soon completed the spell, his left hand automatically continuing the gestures needed to channel mana into the sphere as he turned to inspect it. The orb was a roiling mass of fire, and the heat was so intense that it caused the surrounding air to ripple and warp.
With a final gesture, Finn sent the Fireball hurtling into a nearby wall, the flames dissipating harmlessly against the warded stone. As soon as he completed the spell, a notification appeared in front of him.
New Spell: Fireball
You have summoned a great flaming ball of fire! Congratulations, you’ve managed to cast a spell that even the most arcane-challenged fire mages manage to master. Would you like for us to throw you a party or something? Perhaps hand you a participation trophy of some kind?
Awaken Online: Ember (Tarot #1) Page 23
