The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith

by Justin Miller

  After this talk, I remembered my quest I had received in Rosenheim, the Path of the Archmage. “I’m no Archmage. I haven’t even mastered one field of magic let alone all of them.”

  “I know that.. that’s why that spell is beyond you. The first Archmage possessed two Grand spells that were unique to him. They were the magics of creation and destruction. Magus Mercy, and Magus Wrath.” She looked up at me, and I saw that her eyes were extremely sad.

  “You knew the first Archmage?”

  She nodded to my question. “I knew there was something special about you. But to be connected to that guy, really…” She let out a small smile.

  “You know… I’m not from this world, right? There’s no way that I could really be related to him..”

  “I know that, idiot..” She said in her small voice again. “But your magic can be. You even act like that jerk.”

  “Jerk? Hey, I thought I was a nice guy?” I looked down to her, and then to the other women. “I’m a nice guy, right?”

  “No, you’re definitely a nice guy.” Dariel nodded firmly, and Lilith laughed.

  “That’s right, you’re both nice guys. Sorry, let myself get carried away with the past there.”

  “It’s alright. I should probably tell you something too.” She looked at me oddly, but I continued. “Well, Denise already knows most of this. But when a foreigner like me receives a request, something like a floating page appears in front of us that only we can see. I got one of those before graduating, telling me to master three different fields of magic. It was called the Path of the Archmage.”

  Lilith smiled a bit again. “Knew it.”

  I turned to look at her again. “But I’m not that guy, so please don’t hold whatever grudge you had with him against me, please?” I smiled and held out a hand for her, but she just blinked to me for a bit before letting out a big laugh, like she had never laughed before.

  “Grudge? Oh.. you though.. no, no… of course not.” It took over a minute before she calmed down enough to use a full sentence. “I don’t have a grudge or anything like that… Like I said, he was a nice guy. He was also my husband.” And on that note, she grinned wryly to me.

  Chapter 22

  “...” The three of us just stood in shock for a moment before I broke the silence. “You.. had a husband? A human husband?”

  “Eh? How is that possible? He was a demon, of course!” Lilith laughed again after declaring this. “You thought an Archmage had to be human? No, any race can become one. It’s about magical talent more than anything, and demons have a lot of time to practice.”

  “Ah… so that’s why me using one of his signature spells was such a shock to you. I’m sorry, that was my misunderstanding.” Now that my mana had recovered enough, I turned the auto-pilot for the ship back on. Seems that when I ran out of mana, everything shut down. Strangely, I still had my manifested robes on, though. Maybe it wasn’t considered a part of my mana when I used it like this?

  “No, I probably gave that kind of impression, huh? Now, tell me more about how you got that spell.”

  “Alright, fine. Well, with a foreigner, all of our abilities are called talents…” I began explaining like I had with Denise, about Talents, skills, and levels. Dariel and Lilith both listened attentively, accepting this as just another facet of being a foreigner.

  “When a foreigner reaches level one hundred, they unlock something called a Hidden Power. Denise got the ability to move extremely fast. Maybe even faster than you did in that fight a bit ago. And me, I got the Magus Wrath.”

  “Hmm… it would have been more fitting if you had gotten Mercy instead of Wrath. It’s more like you to be the savior than the destroyer.” Lilith nodded to herself. “But it is harder to create than destroy, so maybe if you unlock another Hidden Power, it will be that?”

  “Maybe, that or a signature spell of another Archmage.”

  The demon queen firmly shook her head. “No, it’ll be Mercy. You are too much like him to get something from one of the others.”

  “...You are enjoying the fact that my magic is so close to your old husband, aren’t you?”

  Lilith blushed a bit, looking away. “Am not.. I just think it would be kind of nice for you to be like him is all..”

  “Did he have a Guardian Tome like I do?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

  “No.. the Dictum wasn’t created until after his time. Even demons aren’t immortal..”

  “I’m sorry… what happened?”

  Lilith smiled bitterly up to me. “I should be happy, really. It was because of him that the treaty was created. He was the last casualty of the war.”

  I smirked, patting her head. “So that’s why he was a jerk. To go off and leave a girl like you by herself.”

  Lilith jerked her head into a nod, keeping her eyes closed. “Right? Totally a big jerk. The worst..”

  I could swear that she was just barely holding back tears, but she managed to pull herself together after a bit. “Anyways… you wanted to contact Xiao, right? I checked just before coming here, and he hasn’t left for your world yet.”

  It took me a second to register my world to mean the real world. Seems I got a bit caught up myself. “Yeah, sure. Just need something to scry with…”

  Lilith smirks a bit to me, all of her former sorrow gone from her features. “Well, we just happen to be in the middle of the sea, don’t we.”

  “... This is true. Dariel, give me a hand for a second?” I created a wide bowl just a couple inches deep in front of me and set it on the ground. Dariel then brought up a small thread of water and fed it into the bowl until it was full. “Thanks. Now, let’s see if this will work.”

  Referencing my grimoire again, I recited the spell I used to find the gate to hell beneath the oasis. “Eyes that transcend space, search for the one I seek.” I made sure to feed more mana into the spell to further increase its power. “Show me the one who wields the frozen fire, the mage of Eastal, Xiao.”

  Scry has leveled up to Intermediate

  Divination has increased to 2

  Ripples formed from the center of the water, and then a picture formed of a young man, no older than eighteen. He was tall and slim, with short blonde hair. His outfit was a simple traveler’s cloak, trying to conceal his face from onlookers, but his expression changed slightly into a smile whenever people were looking.

  “You’re right… a total glory seeker. I’m going to send him a message. Want me to include you guys in it, or just let you listen through the bowl?”

  Lilith shrugged. “Might as well just have us listen through that. He doesn’t need to know about me yet.”

  “Right, I understand. Message, Xiao.” Suddenly, the man in the pool of water jerked his head to the side, having received the tone of the message spell. “Hello. You may want to duck into that alley before replying. People tend to think you’re crazy when you talk to yourself.”

  Xiao’s eye twitched a bit at my joke, but it was an honest statement. I couldn’t count how many looks I got while talking to Denise in Rosenheim with the message spell. But, eventually he did walk into the alley. “Who are you? And how did you find me?”

  “I had an acquaintance locate you after learning about your graduation. As for who I am… if you are the Frozen Flame, then you can call me… the Wordsmith.” The three women around me giggled at my reference to the runes I crafted, looking to each other with a smile.

  “I guess that makes you the other one, huh? Fuck… I thought those bastards were making it up.”

  “No, I am real. I’ve just been doing my best to stay out of the spotlight. It would seem you learned the hard way why.”

  “Yeah, I get it. Those greedy shits all wanted me to teach them the secret to pass. None of them bothered to work it out themselves.” I winced a bit at his vulgar language, and considered not helping him after all. In the end, I did just assert I was a nice guy.

  “Listen. You got a book when you gra
duated, right? It should have been called something like Xiao’s Grimoire?”

  “Guess you got one too. They said it was the proof of passing, but it doesn’t look like more than a normal spellbook.”

  “It’s actually a lot more than that. Let me ask you, what abilities does your book give you?”

  “What? Just a bonus to some stats, an increase in magic talents if I study it daily, and it lets me use a spell I write in it as if I said that lame chant. Yours should be the same, right?”

  I shook my head, and then realized he couldn’t see me. “No. Each book is different. Yours is from the Assailant series, while mine is the Guardian series. But give me a second to explain, it took me a while to gather this information.”

  “Just keep it brief, will you? I’ve got somewhere to be.”

  This guy is seriously ungrateful… don’t you realize how much I am going out of my way to help you? “Make time. This is important information that you won’t learn easily. The grimoires are really artifacts belonging to a set called the Deific Dictum.”

  “This shoddy book? How is that anything so special..”

  “Just trust me. How many spells have you written in it so far?”

  He pulled out a book that looked almost identical to my own grimoire, and counted through the pages. “Just five, I only write the useful ones down for the bonus. Why?”

  “When you get to thirty spells, it unlocks another ability. Yours will probably be some kind of attack, since mine was a defensive power. Also, you can unlock more powers by receiving the blessings of different magically-inclined races.”

  “Is that true? This thing actually becomes useful?”

  Lilith pursed her lips, and then looked at me. “Please don’t send him to the demons… I can’t trust someone like that…” Dariel nodded in agreement, as did Denise. Seems it was unanimous.

  “Yeah. If you perform some deed for them, they will give your book a racial blessing that unlocks another power.” I made sure to leave out any mention of the elves or demons in this summary.

  “So troublesome… I take it you won’t be getting in my way?” He asked in a somewhat aggressive tone, like he planned to take me out if I did.

  “No need to. We’re on different sides of the continent. I’ll help out whoever I can on my end regardless of what happens. Besides, from what I can tell you are going down the elementalist’s path, and that doesn’t interest me.”

  “Oh, and just what is the Wordsmith’s path?” I could see a grin forming on his face, and he likely didn’t realize I could see him.

  “You’ll have to find that out for yourself, Frozen Flame. We’ll talk again later.” I waved my hand over the pool and ended the message spell at the same time, cancelling both and looking up to the others. “I don’t like him.”

  Dariel smiled a bit. “I don’t think any of us do.”

  Lilith nodded, a somewhat wicked smile on her face. “Want me to make trouble for him~?”

  “No, no, we aren’t the bad guys. Just keep an eye on him and let me know if he causes trouble himself. Also, there’s a chance he could have a run-in with the angels, so watch out for that too.”

  Lilith laughed at my warning, “Oh, I’d love to see those bastards try to get along with him. He’d probably start attacking them as soon as they showed the stick up their ass.”

  I nodded, smiling. “Maybe, but you can never be too sure. And he didn’t have any traveling companions, so I don’t really feel like he’s a threat yet. His unique magic is essentially just a modified ice spell. That’s nowhere near the real potential of a frozen flame.” I actually had given that spell a fair bit of thought when Dariel told me his alias.

  “Oh? And what would you have done with it?”

  “Hmm, I would have mixed fire and ice magic. Do you know what happens when you quickly freeze and then heat up an object?”

  “It breaks, right?”

  “Exactly. If you can create a spell that rapidly changes its element from fire to ice fast enough that the flame itself looks made of ice, it will destroy anything in its path. That would be my ideal.”

  “Yeah.. but for that, you’d need the ability to change the nature of the fire itself..” Dariel starts talking, and then immediately shuts up and looks at me wide-eyed.

  “Exactly. Unheard of, right?” I grinned to her, and she laughed. I had the feeling she just got a new pet project. Denise was smiling as well, being aware of the rune I gave to the Vinehaven elves.

  Lilith, of course, didn’t know that rune so she was looking between us, realizing that she was the only one left out. “What is it? What’s so funny?” She started pouting to get our attention.

  “Oh, nothing.” I smiled, patting Lilith’s head playfully.

  “Hey, stop that~!” She laughed, swatting at my hand. “You know how to make that kind of spell, don’t you?”

  “If I wanted to, sure. But like I told him, being an elementalist isn’t my goal. Being an Archmage is. I’ll let someone else figure out the Frostfire spell.” That seemed to settle her down, and Dariel gave the faintest nod.

  Denise finally walked up next to me, smiling slightly. “So, the Wordsmith, huh?”

  “Yeah, I thought it fit. Why, you don’t like it?”

  “No, I think it suits you just fine. Between your tendency to craft new runes to overcome challenges and your silver tongue to overcome the ladies.” She winked teasingly to me, and both Dariel and Lilith blushed, looking away. Incidentally, they ended up looking at each other, seeing each other’s blush, and worsening their own.

  “You make it sound like I’m just a big flirt.” I laughed, seeing the reaction of the other two women.

  “Not at all. You don’t need to flirt. That’s just the kind of personality you have. It’s not a bad thing, really.”

  “Sure, sure. Don’t forget, we’re still looking to add someone else to our group once we find a good warrior.”

  Seeing a change of topic, the others took it as the lifeline it was to get back into the conversation, asking almost in unison, “You’re looking for a warrior?”

  I nodded to them, smiling slightly. “Yeah. Eventually I want to make friends with a strong warrior that can help fill in the gap Denise and I have in our formation. Right now, neither of us can take a hit well. We’ve only lasted this long because we haven’t run into any enemies that were on us fast enough to get a hit in.”

  Dariel nodded, thinking something over. “What about your friend? The one you left at the port city?”

  “No, he won’t be good for them.” Surprisingly, it was Lilith who interjected. “Even if he was strong enough, it can’t be a foreigner, not with both of them fully in this world. They’d have to slow down to half their regular speed. And even then, there aren’t that many foreigners that make the effort to blend in.”

  “I see. So he doesn’t just need a strong warrior, but one native to this world. And one that isn’t after fame or anything like that. Most warriors at that level are only after the glory.”

  “Right, right?” Lilith turned to look at me. “Does it have to be a strong one? You can’t train them up yourself?”

  “Well, I might be able to. I honestly don’t know. Denise was at the same level as I was when we joined together, and we have grown at the same rate since. I figure that, if I team up with someone weaker than I am, they’ll either experience a faster growth to reach my level quickly, or else always stay weaker than I am.”