On the Shoulders of Titans

by Andrew Rowe

  On the Shoulders of Titans

  By Andrew Rowe

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional.

  Copyright © 2018 Andrew Rowe

  All rights reserved.

  Cover artwork by Daniel Kamarudin (https://thedurrrrian.deviantart.com/)

  Cover design and typography by Shawn T. King/STK Kreations. (https://www.artstation.com/stk_kreations)

  Map of Kaldwyn by Karl Vesterberg (http://www.traditionalmaps.com/)

  ISBN: (n/a for Kindle edition)

  ISBN-13: (n/a for Kindle edition)

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to every person who has had to live in fear of persecution due to their sexual preferences, gender identity, ethnicity, disabilities, religion, or any other element of who they are.

  This is also dedicated to anyone who has suffered because of their lack of characteristics that others have tried to impose upon them, such as sexual preferences, gender, or religious beliefs.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  Recap – Attunements

  Recap – Sufficiently Advanced Magic

  Chapter I – Well, That Was Unexpected

  Chapter II – Special Training

  Chapter III – Mismatch

  Chapter IV – Restricted Attunements

  Chapter V – Options

  Chapter VI – Two Heads are Better than One

  Chapter VII – Overdoing It Just a Tad

  Chapter VIII – Sorcery Scars

  Chapter IX – Rest and Recovery

  Chapter X – Difficult Questions

  Chapter XI – A Persistent Hatred for Colored Square Puzzles

  Chapter XII – Lessons Learned

  Chapter XIII – Third Time is the Charm

  Chapter XIV –These Tests Are Never Fair

  Chapter XV – Replacements

  Chapter XVI – And Then Everything Was On Fire

  Chapter XVII – Shots Fired

  Chapter XVIII – Everything That Could Possibly Go Wrong

  Chapter XIX – Emergency Preparedness

  Chapter XX – Ballroom Dancing

  Chapter XXI – Deep Wounds

  Chapter XXII – Unlikely Companions

  Chapter XXIII – Climber

  Chapter XXIV – Scales of the Serpent

  Epilogue – Another Step Forward

  Appendix I – Attunement Mark Levels

  Appendix II – Attunement Mark Variations

  Appendix III – Characters and Terms

  Acknlowedgmenets

  Similar Works

  A Note From the Author

  Six Sacred Swords Preview Chapter – Legends Lost

  About the Author

  Other Books by Andrew Rowe

  Map of Kaldwyn

  The map above shows the continent of Kaldwyn, where this novel takes place. It is divided into four major nations — Valia, Edria, Caelford, and Dalenos. Each major nation has one or more of the Soaring Spires; these are also shown on the map.

  Sufficiently Advanced Magic took place entirely within the nation of Valia.

  The Serpent Spire and Lorian Heights Academy are both located in Beaufort, in the eastern nation of the nation of Valia.

  Corin’s home is located in Hathridge, a city south of Beaufort.

  Recap – Attunements

  From Keras Selyrian’s Research Notes (Prior to Sufficiently Advanced Magic)

  On this continent, no one is born with magical abilities. Instead, when humans reach a certain age — which varies from nation to nation — they’re eligible to visit their local “Soaring Spire” for something called a Judgment.

  The spires are huge towers filled with monsters and treasure. They’re also basically giant death traps. Their goddess must have a sick sense of humor.

  That seems to be an unfortunate trend among the gods I’ve encountered in general.

  Yeah, so, survive a Judgment and you get an “attunement”. Attunements are marks, seemingly similar to the dominion marks from back home, more complex. I have some theories on how they work, but I’ll get into that later.

  You don’t get to pick which attunement you get after you finish your Judgment, as far as I can tell. And the place the attunement shows up on your body impacts how your magic works. It seems like people can train to work around that, but the location of the mark determines what is easiest for you.

  These are the attunements for the kingdom of Valia, where I’m visiting soon.

  Diviner: Standard information gathering attunement. They can also make memory crystals and store memories inside. Mana Types: Mental (Primary), Enhancement (Secondary)

  Guardian: Guardians are capable of focusing mana into specific parts of their bodies, imparting vastly enhanced physical combat capabilities. Also capable of discharging their mana through contact, enabling them to harm creatures impervious to conventional force. Mana Types: Enhancement (Primary), Life (Secondary)

  Elementalist: Ranged combat experts with fire, air, and lightning magic. Mana Types: Fire (Primary), Air (Secondary)

  Enchanter: Capable of imbuing items with permanent enchantments, similar to Dominion Marks back at home. It’s strange to see so many items with runes around here. Mana Types: Transference (Primary), Mental (Secondary)

  Mender: Healers. Enough said. Mana Types: Life (Primary), Earth (Secondary)

  Shadow: Concealment specialists. They can also use shadow magic to suppress other forms of magic, and have some physical enhancements. Mana Types: Umbral (Primary), Enhancement (Secondary)

  Shaper: Able to conjure and manipulate mana constructs, including simulacra. Extremely flexible. Reportedly excellent duelists. Mana Types: Earth (Primary), Enhancement (Secondary)

  Summoner: Form contracts with monsters to exchange their own mana for some of the monster’s power, similar to Soulblades up in Dalenos. I’d love to learn more about how these work. Mana Types: Air (Primary), Transference (Secondary)

  Attunements get stronger as you use them. As your attunement gets stronger, the color of your aura changes.

  Locally, they refer to attunement levels by gemstone names. Some of the other nations use other styles.

  The colors of their auras follow the color of the rainbow.

  They are as follows:

  Quartz: Clear aura. This is the level where people start when they first get an attunement.

  Carnelian: Red aura. At this point, people develop an aura that protects them from attacks called a “shroud”. Sounds useful. Wish I had one.

  Sunstone: Orange aura. At this level, generally learn to manipulate their shroud, including suppressing their attunement abilities to avoid detection.

  Citrine: Yellow aura. I always get this confused with Carnelian. At this level, they gain access to another type of magic.

  Emerald: Green aura. This level supposedly lets them manipulate ambient mana.

  Sapphire: Blue aura. They claim these don’t actually exist, but I’m pretty sure they do.

  Notably, some of the attunements don’t give out abilities in exactly the same sequence. For example, Guardians get their shroud immediately at Quartz, and I’ve seen some attunements that can suppress their shrouds as soon as they get one.

  I’ll write down more notes when I’m done with this visit. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long one.

  Recap – Sufficiently Advanced Magic

  Okay, Keras.

  In case you don’t remember me, I’m Corin Cadence. We never really were properly introduced. I’m a student at Lorian Heights Academy right now, but we met a little before that.

  I suppose that’s a good place
to start.

  I’m sure you remember being in that weird crystal prison.

  Well, when I found you, I was supposed to be taking my Judgment. That’s a test that someone can take when they come of age in Valia, assuming they can afford the entrance fee.

  There were two main reasons I wanted to take a Judgment.

  One, because surviving one means you get an attunement. Each attunement comes with magical powers. And everyone wants magical powers, right? Right.

  The other reason is a bit more personal. My brother, Tristan, disappeared when he took his Judgment five years ago.

  Everyone told me that meant that Tristan was dead. I wasn’t convinced that was the only possibility. But even if he was dead, I also knew that if I managed to get strong enough to climb all the way to the top of the spire, I could ask the goddess for a boon. Bringing my brother back to life seemed like a reasonable thing to ask for.

  Of course, climbing all the way to the top of the spire would be much harder than just finishing a Judgment, but I needed to start somewhere.

  Our local Judgments are held inside the Serpent Spire, one of the six Soaring Spires. I assume you went in through the Climber’s Gate, which is a different entrance meant for groups of veterans who are trying to climb to the top of the spire.

  Yeah, thought so.

  Anyway, I found a book early on in the test. “Trials of Judgment.”

  When I opened said book, it started to give me advice. No, not verbally. That would have been even stranger, but possibly more hilarious.

  Text started to appear on the pages. It wrote me “helpful” comments about each of the rooms I was going through, like, “This is the Room of Eternal Death. It’s like the Room of Normal Death, but somewhat more repetitive.”

  That sort of thing.

  For reasons beyond my recollection, I followed some of the book’s advice. And I found a secret passage.

  That led me to your prison.

  You and two others — Echion and Vera — were in different jail cells. At the time, I didn’t know if that was a part of the test or if it was real.

  It did seem a little bit weird for me to find just enough keys on the way to open two cells, but not the third.

  I opened the other two cells, and then you cut your way out with your ridiculous swordsmanship. Apparently you were waiting until the other two were free because cutting yourself out earlier would have triggered traps that would have incinerated the other two.

  You started leading the way out.

  Unfortunately, we were interrupted by one of the visages of the goddess — Katashi — and he wasn’t very happy to see us.

  It was strange to see Katashi in the Serpent Spire, since that’s the territory of his brother, Tenjin. But we were a little too preoccupied to worry about that.

  The rest of us ran like cowards while you fought him.

  Good work on surviving that, by the way. Not sure how you managed that one, considering visages can wipe out cities with an angry glare.

  Maybe he thought you were cute?

  Okay, maybe that wasn’t it.

  Right. Anyway, Vera stabbed me in the back just a little and ran off with Echion. As you might imagine, I was pretty disappointed by that.

  I managed to make my way out with some more “advice” from the book, and I even picked up a magic sword along the way. That was nice. I’m glad the goddess seems to like leaving one-of-a-kind legendary artifacts lying around in towers.

  Oh, and I even managed to get an attunement, like I’d entered the spire for in the first place.

  The problem? I got the Enchanter one. No one likes the Enchanter attunement.

  Least of all my father, Magnus Cadence.

  I got a mild case of verbal lacerations when I got home.

  Also, the girl who had been raised to be my retainer — Sera — got promoted to “family member that is presumably your sister”. This was probably because she got a much better attunement than I did, a Summoner mark.

  It might have also been because of my father’s general disappointment in me, though. Or maybe it was just some kind of contrived plan to get Sera and me to compete with each other and excel.

  My father underestimated us. After all, competing would have required actually talking to each other about the situation.

  We were far too clever to talk out our differences and concerns ahead of time.

  Infinite social skills. That’s me.

  Right. So, after that, Sera and I got sent off to Lorian Heights to spend two years training there before our years of military service.

  We were assigned to divisions, which weren’t really important, except for the fact that we’re eventually supposed to figure out who the members of Spider Division are. Spider Division has members infiltrating the other divisions, and probably sabotaging them.

  I still haven’t worked on that, because I’ve had higher priorities, like not dying. I’ll probably work on it eventually.

  At the academy, I learned all sorts of things about Enchanting. Like how to blow off my own hands by experimenting without asking the right questions first.

  No, I didn’t literally blow off my own hands.

  After that, Professor Vellum — who didn’t want to spend the money on buying me new hands — decided to teach me some things about enchanting in non-combustible ways.

  So, yeah, we took some tests, I learned magic, that sort of thing.

  Even made some friends, I guess. Or, reconnected with a old friend, in Patrick’s case.

  Aside from Patrick, there was Marissa, a Guardian with impressive punching abilities. I suspect you’d like her.

  Oh, almost everyone calls Marissa “Mara”. I’m terrible with nicknames, though, so I forget sometimes.

  Aside from that, there was Jin. I made him a bunch of items. He helped me out with a few things, too. We got close.

  He asked me to the winter ball.

  That didn’t work out for reasons that will be clear later.

  Anyway, during one of my tests, part of the school kind of exploded.

  Turns out that Mizuchi, one of the children of the God Serpent, was on a rampage. And that rampage was because Katashi, the visage we’d run into earlier, was somewhat upset.

  Long story short, his brother — the Visage Tenjin — was missing. Considering how much I wanted to get my own brother back, I could sympathize.

  I talked to Katashi. Surprisingly, this sort of worked. Emphasis on the “sort of”. He put a weird brand on my hand that would supposedly explode if I didn’t find the person he wanted.

  I don’t know why I have a pattern of running into hand-destroying situations, but that seems to be my lot in life.

  Maybe I need to figure out how to make magical prosthetics.

  I should research that later.

  Hm? Do I have a list of things I need to get back to?

  Nah. Why’d I need that? I have a great memory.

  Anyway, where was I?

  Um, something about the spire. I think.

  Oh, Katashi. Thank you.

  Anyway, I needed to find Vera.

  I talked to Professor Orden, and she instructed me to put together a team. She also explained that she was a Whisper — a member of a secret organization dedicated to one of the visages.

  I worked on putting together a team as she’d instructed.

  Sera was an easy choice.

  I would have brought Marissa and Patrick, but Marissa was recovering from a gift of power given to her by Katashi, and Patrick lost at a coin flip to Jin.

  In retrospect, I should never have allowed Patrick to flip a coin against someone with illusion magic.

  I was expecting to bring our dueling teacher, Lord Teft, but Orden overruled me and brought Derek Hartigan instead. Derek was one of the most powerful swordsmen on the continent, so the choice made sense, but I was suspicious of Derek because of his connections.

  Anyway, we went and found Vera.

  That wasn’t the hard part.
<
br />   The hard part was that we had to go back into the spire, and for reasons that I will never understand, Katashi didn’t give us any sort of way to just tell him when we’d arrived. So we had to go look for him, and that meant trying to backtrack to where I’d seen him last.

  Because my life can never be simple, it turned out that Professor Orden had manipulated us into going to a place where she could kidnap Vera for her own purposes. Mostly to help her with finishing a project related to artificial attunements.

  Vera was apparently a big part of researching a new type of artificial attunements, designed to make humans as powerful as god beasts. Echion was one of the first test subjects.

  Orden wanted to expedite the process of making more of these powerful artificial attuned in order to use them as weapons for Valia. That’s the nation we’re in right now, if you’re not familiar. I know you’re not from around here.

  Oh, and Orden had been involved with kidnapping Tenjin, so there was that.

  I also found out some of the people she’d worked with on that. One was a powerful Summoner named Elora Theas, and an Emerald-level swordsman.

  Orden actually wanted me to work with her group. I was a little conflicted, of course, since she was one of my professors, but I couldn’t agree with her plans. Both for ethical reasons and because I didn’t think her plans would actually work. She was not only provoking a war, she was risking our nation’s survival on a tremendous number of variables, and I couldn’t agree to that. It just...wasn’t strategically sound.

  So, I decided to fight.

  Now, there were five other people there. So, fighting Orden should have been easy, right? Five on one?

  Except she’d tricked Derek into putting on a ring earlier. A ring that made him follow her every command.