“What is th-” Ajax felt his jaw snap shut before he could finish the question, their deal was still in effect, Ajax wasn’t sure how the deal knew that knowledge of what this formation was was common knowledge for the sidhe but clearly he couldn’t ask anything about it until Verya asked a question first. He supposed it had to do with the brief Mana activity he felt from Verya, like the deal was updating itself in real ti based on both of them.
“Troubleso as that deal might be, it seems like there are upsides to it.” Verya smirked as she made a show of thinking about a question to ask Ajax.
Ajax felt [Diplomat]’s influence and agreed with it, instead of playing her ga he instead got to work taking out a pad and copying down all the runes he saw etched not only on the ground but also on the large tal rod.
“What, you’ve never seen runes where you’re from?” Verya joked, a chuckle clear as she knew she was getting under his skin but Ajax’s head snapped to her in an instant and a grin split his face. Verya’s eyes widened as she realized exactly why he was smiling. “That wasn’t a q-”
“I’ve seen runes before but not these ones specifically.” Ajax barreled over her objection not letting her retract the barb he decided to take as a serious question he could feel the deal magic activate again, just like when it shut his jaw only this ti Ajax could feel the deal was favouring him, the question was barb but because he chose to take it as a real question his and Verya’s Mana butted heads and his won. “We used two different kinds of runes actually.”
Ajax felt surprised that he felt compelled to give a much more thorough answer than before, clearly moving to force the deal to accept that as a question cost him so of the leeway he had when answering other questions. This was probably what Verya was feeling when he asked questions and she was forced to give detailed responses.
“One for runic magic and one for enchantnts, these look a lot more like the runes for enchantnt. But I don’t have the expertise either to know any correlation between them.” Ajax continued his explanation. “Enchanters are actually responsible for inscribing both types of runes but while runic magic is used by very few humans almost everyone uses enchanted items.”
“I hadn’t ant that as a question.” Verya was angry at herself for slipping up, again she had underestimated the human and hadn’t been careful of the standing agreents they had when she tried to rile him up. Her plan was to get him to make more deals but it backfired this ti. “Though it is nice to see you give such a detailed answer.”
Tempted as he was to ask about what this place was, Ajax was pretty sure it was exactly what it looked like. Now that he had had a chance to take a look around it seed like the sidhe were specifically drawing and trapping Lightning Mana in this place to use as a resource. As much as he would have liked to know what they were using it and how that would take too many questions to figure out and he had other things he wanted to know for now.
“You can cast the sa way I do.” Ajax decided to see if he could focus his question by giving so frawork to the question with a few statents beforehand. “But you also add so optional movents that empower your spells. It's not as limiting as chanting or runic casting. How do sidhe cast?”
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“Almost all sidhe cast the sa way the both of us do.” Verya started her own explanation. “Chanting and runic magic are known to us but are not a good fit. Free form casting for its many advantages lacks in power compared to the other two so one of the things we found to try and make up for so of the power difference is a Rare Skill [Spell Direction].”
Ajax didn’t bother to hide his smile or the greedy look in his eyes when he heard that. “Free form casting doesn’t actually have a Skill, [Spell Direction] is the closest thing we found, unlike [Chanting] or [Runic Casting] Skills it is not only of a higher rarity but an optional addition to free form casting to increase the power of our spells.”
This was the perfect way for Ajax to increase his power. Ajax quickly added obtaining [Spell Direction] near the top of his to-do list, he was in fact very much tempted to ask his second question about how to go about gaining the Skill since that should also be common knowledge among the sidhe. After seeing how tight-lipped Verya had been about asking questions Ajax decided to bank his second question until he failed to figure out [Spell Direction] or until he had sothing important to ask.
Turning his attention back to the formation Ajax closed his eyes and used both [ditation] as well as [Sense Mana] to get a better feel for the place. “This was recently used.” Ajax said after silently exploring the place with his Skills. “There is almost no Mana stored.”
Useful as this place could be, Ajax was also pretty sure it would be impossible to make anything like it in Gryndor. With the number of dungeons they had, anything like this would be drained dry of Mana instead of being able to hold any of it.
Ajax froze as he realized sothing. “If dungeons draw in all the Mana from the surrounding, how did that lake exist?” Unlike this place the Mana concentration was limited to the water instead of also becoming airborne but it was still way too close to a dungeon for it to be able to form. “What was special about that lake?”
“What lake?” Verya asked, she hoped to get enough specifics that the answer to the question could be sothing considered general knowledge to the sidhe so that she could know out his remaining question.
“Just a lake near my ho.” Ajax waved away the question realizing what she was trying to do. “Well this place is very interesting. Places like this are exactly what I would like to make detours for but I can’t use this one as it is almost dry of Mana so once I copy down these runes we can get moving once again. You can rest while I do that if you want, I’ll keep an eye out for you.”
Verya had to force herself not to react when she heard his offer. That was such a rookie move and unfortunately not one she could take advantage of. The sa words said to a sidhe that was stronger than Ajax by the sa amount that he was stronger than her could have her accept his offer and have Ajax actually remove one of his eyes to keep it out for her.
“I’ll do that then.” She said as neutrally as she could as she started to debate the pros and cons of warning Ajax of how stupid he had almost been, if he hadn’t set out the previous ruling about him only accepting deal with a specific statent she could have accepted his deal and even with their power imbalance he would have been heavily affected by the deal. It might not have cost him an eye but he would have been forced to actually sit and stare at her for as long as she decided to rest should she have decided to accept his offer.
Once Ajax finished copying the runes he safely stored the half filled book in his storage, he had made use of more than just his [Drawing] Skill also using [Cataloging] [Focused Mind] and [Writing] to ensure the pages were written in such a way that when ripped out they could be arranged so that they would be a recreation of the formation in question without him having to morize the exact location of each page.
Having finished with his copying of the runes Ajax and Verya continued their journey towards the dungeon. Along the way they had co close to two more similar places but according to Verya they were both pretty full of Mana. Ajax had debated draining so of the Mana there to help with his own progression and Skills but Verya quickly put an end to that. It turns out that high level creatures are specifically placed to defend the place, they are there as a test so that only the worthy sidhe or those with strong enough backing can access the stored Mana.
The trip to the dungeon wasn’t totally peaceful with three more fights against the fauna taking place yet all of them were about as strong as the shadow elental though only one of them had managed to escape after attacking them. Ajax was still a little frustrated the owl had managed to retreat but he put that to the back of his mind as he knew they were approaching the dungeon and he had yet to co to a decision about Verya joining him inside or waiting outside for him to exit.
“I hope you’re not planning to cause a dungeon break.” Verya said, breaking the comfortable silence they had for the past hour. “Because there is no way I will be a part of that, and trying to force
to be a part of it would break our deal.”
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