by J. A. Hunter
A bit eccentric, but also the best rune worker in the Alliance. She’d spent most of her days, IRL, as a seamstress and tailor. Rune-work, she insisted to anyone who would give her their ear, wasn’t so different from sewing or mending or doing a spot of needlepoint. Just attention to detail and following the right patterns.
“It doesn’t help that you only pop in for a few hours a week. Never gonna be a proper rune worker at that rate. Oughta toss you right out on your ear.” The words were harsh, but I could see the flicker of a grin on her face as she waved toward the three-legged stool at the end of her workstation. “I know you’re liable to run off any minute, so I had this set out for you.” She pushed over a sheet of parchment with a circular runic binding meticulously painted on.
I smiled. The very best thing about Betty wasn’t her formidable skill as an Arcane Scrivener. Nope. The best thing was she didn’t seem to have the foggiest clue who I was, or if she did, she didn’t care in the least. Either was fine by me.
I plopped down onto the stool and took a look at the page she’d pushed my way. It came from one of her many work manuals, all drawn by hand. The symbol on the sheet was actually a compound script set, composed of several basic runic bindings, all interwoven into a circle. Below the complicated sigil was a meticulous description of how to inscribe the individual runes and in what order, what its potential uses were, and how the script set might interact with other basic runes and common script sets.
This was an intermediate Protection Ward, which when combined with a single rune inscribed at the center of the circle, could temporarily reduce elemental damage. Or when combined with another set of runes, could be used as a foundation to ward off specific types of elemental and magical creatures.
“You’ll be needing these,” she said, pulling out a handful of bronze coins, all blank, each the size of a silver dollar with a small hole at the top. Basic amulets, if I had to guess. She slapped a runic awl down next to the pendants without another word of explanation. “Get busy, lollygagger,” she snapped. She promptly pulled down a set of brass crafter’s goggles with a set of telescoping lenses and resumed her work.
She had a golden amulet the size of a closed fist on the table in front of her. A fat ruby sat in the center. Painstakingly engraved into the metal around the gem were hair-fine runes so small they were hard to even make out. She reached up, casually flipped a blue lens into place, adjusted a series of dials and tiny levers alongside the goggles, then set to work with a fine-pointed awl a heck of a lot nicer than the loaner she’d given me. She squinted, forehead creasing, and began etching a new line of runic script into the metal.
She wasn’t altering or enhancing some old artifact—she was creating a new one. A custom piece, no doubt, tailored to order.
“You won’t get any better watching me, boy.” She never stopped working.
No matter how much everyone else bowed and scraped for me, Betty Howard never would. Not in a million years. I slipped on a pair of the strange goggles—Osmark constantly wore them—flipped down a blue lens, just as Betty had done, and went to work. I read through the instructions on the sheet of parchment once more, then etched the first rune in the script, Sitoa, onto the surface of the token. Blue lines of power flared, augmented by the goggles. I finished the final slash, then moved on to the next mark in the circle, Saa, connecting the two with a tiny line.
The line of power spread from the first rune to the second, and the pair of them began to glow and pulse in a strange syncopated rhythm—blue, green, blue, green.
I watched, fascinated, as a fraction of my Spirit drained away in service to powering the runic script. The energy for runes came from one of three places, I’d learned. Most runes used straight Spirit, which was taken directly from the crafter. But some runes required specific types of magic—a flaming sword would require concentrated fire from a Firebrand—and for those, a third-party mage was usually required, unless the caster could meet the requirement themselves. The final type was energy harvested directly from monsters, using a special type of syphon called a charging crystal—not so different from the enormous emerald in the Darkshard Keep control room.
That whole table, it turned out, was one giant arcane artifact, covered in insanely complex runes and powered by the charging crystal, which connected directly to Brewald, the Darkshard Guardian.
When I added the third of six runes to the set, Rikki, my hand slipped just a hair. One of the angular lines went a millimeter too far, and the glowing light morphed from blues and greens to an angry red, the color of an infected wound. My Spirit gauge began to noticeably drop, as though I were casting some overpowered spell. Maybe Plague Burst or Night Cyclone. The bronze coin hummed and rattled across the surface of the table, clattering violently against the wood. I stole a look at Betty, who simply scooted over a few inches, then tapped her awl against a rune I hadn’t yet learned, scrawled on the leg of her stool.
Immediately, an opalescent barrier sprung up around her with an audible pop.
Just in time to shelter her from the deafening explosion. The bronze medal flashed in front of me—a blast of brilliant crimson—and searing hot chunks of metallic shrapnel peppered my face, neck, and hands. At my level the explosion hadn’t shaved off more than the tiniest fraction of HP, but the metal shards still burned like fury, and most annoying of all, a debuff appeared, floating before me:
<<<>>>
Debuff Added
Stunned: You have been stunned! Attack damage -10%; Stamina regeneration reduced by 15%; movement speed reduced by 25%; duration, 1 minute.
<<<>>>
Betty cast me a sidelong glance from the corner of her eye, then cackled as she tapped the rune on her stool leg once more, dismissing the colorful shield around her. “Unregulated Spirit,” she said by way of explanation. “Runic script work ain’t about speed, it’s about accuracy. Precision.” She reached over and prodded at the warhammer on my belt with one bony finger. “This work here, boy, it ain’t like swinging around a hammer. It’s threading a needle. And even one little slipup can get y’all blown to hell. Count yourself lucky that script circle was so dang small and worked in bronze.”
I blinked away the purple afterimage still staining my vision, and the debuff faded with it.
“Now get yer butt back on the horse and try again. For a real Scrivener, practice makes perfect.” She swept a hand toward the pile of bronze medals. “You got yourself plenty to practice on, I reckon.” She offered me a wink, barely visible through the goggles, then hunched back over, her lips pressed into a tight line as she resumed her work. Her golden medallion had at least fifteen different interlocking runic script circles already, each one of them far more complex than the circle I was working on. And each was no larger than the size of a dime.
I grunted and pulled over the next metal token.
That one erupted up in my face, too—though I made five of the six runes before failing spectacularly. It ate even more of my Spirit and sliced off nearly a sixth of my HP, which was no small thing, proving this was serious business.
My third run was my first success. The completed medal earned me a noncommittal grunt from Betty and 100 XP—a drop in the bucket at my current level. Still, I was only a level 1 Runic Scrivener, so I only needed a handful of successes to unlock my next Scrivener level. I buckled down, working through the next three medallions without fault. The one after that blew up, though instead of fire it jettisoned a gout of arctic wind into my eyes.
Snow Blindness for two minutes.
“Starting to get cocksure,” Betty said between bouts of cackling laughter.
When the snow blindness finally subsided, I glanced around the room only to find that every other disciple had retreated. No one wanted to see their elevated leader blowing himself up over and over again—bad for morale. Plus, they probably thought I’d unleash my wrath on them if they laughed at my misfortune. I shook my head and hit it again. This time I was slower. More diligent. More patient. Ensuring ea
ch line was meticulously placed. Each dot added just so. Each swooping curve perfect.
It was simple work, really, but deeply enjoyable.
True, if I got something wrong, it would literally blow up in my face, but the task was straightforward. Simple. I knew exactly what needed to be done. There was no moral ambiguity here. No grand sweeping decisions that would affect the fate of millions. If I screwed up, I would pay the price tag with a face full of shrapnel, but no one else would suffer or die. Plus, because the work was so exacting, I couldn’t focus on anything else. My mind was fully present. Back in college when school or life became too overwhelming, I’d clean. Do dishes. Sweep the floors. Scrub the toilets.
Anything to get my mind focused elsewhere. This was a lot like that.
I’d finished twenty-five of the bronze medallions when a notification pinged in my ear. I set my awl down and swiped a hand across my sweat-covered brow, then pulled up my interface.
<<<>>>
Crafting Subspecialty: Runic Scrivener
Runic Scrivener is a subspecialty of the Enchanting Profession and allows you to create powerful runic scripts with a myriad of impressive magical and mundane abilities. This crafting subspecialty requires an Enchanter’s Workshop or a Scrivener’s Lab for maximum effectiveness.
There are eight primary Crafting Professions: Cooking, Enchanting, Alchemy, Tailoring and Leatherwork, Engineering, Merchant-Craft, Blacksmithing, and Lapidary (Jeweler), plus hundreds of subspecialties. All Professions, both Gathering and Crafting, can be unlocked and leveled through practice and use, but any specialized skills or abilities within a given profession must be unlocked with proficiency points. All specialized profession skills can be upgraded a total of seven times (Initiate, Novice, Adept, Journeyman, Specialist, Master, Grandmaster).
Crafting Ability Type/Level: Passive / Level 2
Cost: N/A
Effect 1: Increase effect and duration of Runic Scripts by 5%
Effect 2: All Spirit costs associated with Rune Work are reduced by 3%.
Effect 3: Can inscribe 1 Compound Runic Script Set per Item.
<<<>>>
After I’d finished looking over the update, I toggled over to my character sheet—checking to see where I was at after the raid on Glome Corrie. Using my Avatar of Order ability had cost me dearly, but the points I’d earned from taking out the horde of Vogthar troops and capturing the city had pushed me back up, closing the gap toward level 50. A level I was ecstatic to reach, since it would allow me to unlock my ultimate Shadowmancer ability, Shadow Lord.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
“NOT BAD,” BETTY RELUCTANTLY grumbled as I dismissed my interface. She was still hunched over her workbench, eyes glued on the amulet in front of her. I’d never be as good as her, of course. She wasn’t just a normal crafter. As an Arcane Scrivener she had access to skills and abilities I never would. But if I could accomplish even a fraction of what she could, I’d be more than happy. To have any skill other than hit-thing-in-the-face-with-magic-or-hammer would be nice.
“Might be, you spent more than three hours a week in here, you might someday make a passable rune worker. Might,” she emphasized, the ghost of a smile on her lips.
A message hit my inbox a second before I responded. This one from Abby. Lunchtime.
“Maybe someday,” I said, standing and removing the leather apron she’d loaned me.
“Keep it. Goggles and awl, too. Maybe you can find some time to practice in between bouts of adventuring. Good luck with whatever fresh hell you’re about, youngin’.” She waved me away with the flick of a hand.
Quest Alert!
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, just shy of noon, Abby and I sat at a little circular table in a tavern-turned-pizza-parlor called Frank’s Old World Pizza. Instead of the typical wooden floorboards, the floors here were black-and-white checkered marble, imported from Ankara. The tables were all finely made and covered with checkered tablecloths that looked out of place among the quasi-medieval surroundings. Still, the owners had tried. Against one wall was a painted mural of the Tuscany countryside. And splashed against the back wall, plastered on in bold letters: Frank’s Old World Pizza, Est. 2042. And below that, The Best New York Inspired Pizza in Eldgard!
A bard sung quietly on a raised stage in the corner while servers bustled around the room, carrying huge metal pans overflowing with pizza or tankards of golden ale.
A steaming pie sat between Abby and me. Or at least what remained of it. It wasn’t actually a pizza, of course—V.G.O. classified it as a type of “meat pie”—but it was pretty close. The crust thin. The marinara the right amount of sweet and savory. The cheese thick and gooey. There was even something that could’ve passed for oregano called Blackpatch Clover. This was a pepperoni pizza. The meat was actually smoked swamp croc. Almost couldn’t tell the difference, though. And though soda still wasn’t a thing, the pitcher of ale served well enough.
Frank, the shop owner, worked behind the bar along with his son, Frank Jr., both darker-skinned Wodes with thick beards. One labored over the bulky woodfire stove while the other hurled a bit of dough in the air, spinning it like some giant Frisbee, before catching it with practiced hands.
Frank was a New Yorker to his core. He’d been in the pizza business for thirty-five years, as had his dad before him, as would his son after him.
The guy wasn’t about to let something as trivial as the end of the world close down the family business. He’d found the ingredients to make pizza, had found some backers to finance his shop—Abby may have played a role in that, which meant the Crimson Alliance was a part owner—and almost overnight, Frank had a booming business. The locals still weren’t completely on board, but the Travelers couldn’t get enough. As for me... Well, I had an inkling we’d be seeing our first pizza franchise before too long, reminding me that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Not that I minded. I couldn’t wait until someone got their act together and started making nachos and Mountain Dew. Then I’d be set.
Abby leaned forward and took another bite, this from her third slice. “Know what I love the most about V.G.O.?” she said around a mouthful of cheese and sauce.
“Let me guess. Not being dead?” I said with a wink.
She rolled her eyes. “Haha, ass. Yes, not being dead is pretty great. But what I was gonna say is that I can eat anything I want and never have to worry about hitting the gym again.”
I shrugged, nodded, and took another bite of my own slice. “Solid point.” Having a digital body wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but it certainly had a few perks.
I grabbed my mug and took a long pull, washing down a mouthful of za, then stifled a burp with one fist. I eyed the last few bites on my plate. Seeing pizza go to waste was a high crime, but I couldn’t take another bite without exploding or at the very least popping the button on my trousers. Reluctantly, I pushed my plate away and grabbed a linen napkin, wiping my fingers and face in turn.
“So, what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” Abby asked as she followed suit, scooting her plate, completely clean, toward the table’s center. She raised a hand, signaling our waitress that we were ready for the check. Frank insisted this was a “classy joint,” so unlike most places in Eldgard, you paid after the meal, like was good and proper.
I rubbed at my jaw for a second, then frowned. “I can’t stop thinking about the Doom-Forged relic. This is big. I can feel it. This could be the edge we need, assuming I can find the final piece and figure out what to do with them. Since we’re on good terms with Osmark at the moment, I’m thinking of swinging by the Grand Archives in Alaunhylles.”
Her face darkened into a thunderhead, jaw clenched. “Well if you see the Grand Lore Archivist, please kindly punch him in the face for me.” She’d crossed swords with the folks in the Archives once before, and apparently she still wasn’t entirely over whatever had happened there. Not that she had actually filled me in on the specifics. And Otto was eq
ually tight-lipped about the experience. Some things were better left buried, it seemed.
“Got it. One punch to the face.” I paused, drumming my fingers on the table. “Though first I should probably swing by New Viridia and see if I can’t find out what in the hell is going on with Osmark. I haven’t been able to get ahold of him since the raid, and he missed the brief this morning. He never misses the brief.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Osmark,” purred our waitress, who now sounded slightly British.
“Excuse me?” I glanced up, genuinely baffled. I did a double take. Our waitress was now the Overmind of Order, Sophia. She wore the same garb as the other serving women: a dark woolen dress, dark corset, low-cut lace-up top, white apron wrapped around the waist. But there was no mistaking the face poking up from the server’s outfit. Her dark skin was flawless, her teeth immaculately, impossibly white, her eyes a soft amber—beautiful, but completely unnatural. What’s more, the entire world was frozen, statue still.
“Oh. No,” Abby said, glancing around. “No way is this gonna end well.”
“Don’t be so gloomy, child.”
“Oh. So you’re here to bring us good news, then?” she shot back.
“Well, no. No, I’m not,” Sophia replied with a dazzling smile, completely at odds with her words. She conjured a chair at the edge of the table, then primly sat, rearranging the ruffles of her woolen gown. “Rather terrible news, actually.”
“Called it,” Abby grumbled, folding her arms and shooting daggers at the Overmind from her eyes. Abby was a team player, no doubt, but she liked being manipulated by the Overminds even less than I did.
“My, but you humans are so clever,” Sophia said absently, reaching forward to grab a bit of pizza still on the tray. “Wherever you go, you find a way to conform the world to your image. An impressive feat. Too bad you so often expend your efforts on such minor things.” She hefted the pizza, then took a bite. “Though tasty things, I will admit.”
