“Brielle, please take over and watch the front for ,” Seinnador said to one of the won working the half-finished gear. She nodded, smiled at politely, then quickly headed off to her new task. Seinnador continued through the shop, giving the n at the forge a wave as we headed toward the area that looked like the magical equivalent of a munitions range.
“Oy!” one of the n at the forge called out. “We ‘avin a party today, eh?”
“No demos scheduled,” said a second, scowling as he wiped a soot-covered hand across his sweaty brow.
“ ears can’t take it!” yelled the first.
“Not going loud,” said Seinnador, which seed to placate the n. “Well… probably not going loud.”
“Ack!” spat the first, tossing a hamr down onto his work-bench with a clatter. “Ya know we need to know! I got sensitivities!”
“Cannot be forgin’ Madrin and black-iron when ya gots three types of hells sending mana fluctuations all over,” the second grumbled.
“Sounds like it’s break ti to , bros,” said the third, standing up straight and stretching out his back. Unlike the other two n, who were mundane as far as I could tell, the third was a level eleven silver Delver.
“Fine, fine,” said Seinnador. “A rested man reaps no folly of the weary. But Luidis, please stay and assist.”
“Ah, shit,” said the third man, Luidis. The other two clapped him on the shoulders and gave him wide smiles before andering through a door at the back of the shop. Luidis walked over to us, pulling a pair of steam-punk style goggles down from his forehead and over his eyes.
“Luidis, this is Arlo,” Seinnador said, handing a similar pair of goggles and donning a pair of his own. “Luidis, we’re doing a demo of an immutable weave.”
“Ok, boss man. We don’t have any immutables in the works, though.”
“This one is custor supplied,” Seinnador said, waving a hand at and bowing like a stage magician.
“What? The vest?”
“And the boa.”
“Why weave immutable onto those?” He looked at as though he was offended at the fact, then seed to rember I was a custor. “No offense, bro.”
“None taken,” I said. I couldn’t help but smile at Luidis’ informal attitude, especially when contrasted by Seinnador, who took the man’s attitude in stride.
“Alright, no problem,” said Luidis. “Gonna’ need you to strip though, bro. Unless you wanna get got.”
“Just the vest and boa,” said Seinnador, “if you don’t mind. Please keep on your other attire.”
I raised an eyebrow, but took off the vest and boa, handing them both to Luidis. Just another afternoon spent shirtless with new friends. He took them in his darkly-stained hands and tossed them onto the ground in a pile. Then he stomped on them both with a heavy work boot, grinding his heel into the stone floor. A floor which was covered in all the dust, debris, and likely rodent feces that one normally finds on the unswept floor of an industrial workshop. He even jumped up and down on top of them a ti or two, then gave the pile a kick.
I watched with a sense of stoic detachnt, unsure of whether the man was having a sudden ntal breakdown.
“Good enough for round one, boss man?” Luidis asked. Seinnador was massaging the bridge of his wide nose with the double-thumbs of one hand.
“Thank you for your enthusiasm, Luidis, though I wonder if perhaps there was a portion of the demonstration that you forgot?”
“Wazzat?”
“The portion where it is explained to Lord Arlo that his items will not be hard, despite the vigor with which we will test his unique and irreplaceable items?”
“Why did you say Lord like it’s a big deal, boss man? You know my pa’s a Firelara out in Ghashlain. I can see he’s a Delver, so what else would he be? But, I didn’t forget. Bro looks like a guy with a sense for the dramatic. He’s got a feather boa, right?” He turned to . “You gotta’ like theatrics to wear a boa, yeah?”
I frowned and nodded. He had pegged on sight.
“So I figured I’d go for the shock and amazent routine.”
“There is no shock and amazent routine.”
“Well, there should be.” Luidis bent down and scooped up the vest. I expected to see a layer of dust and dirt slide off of it miraculously, but nothing of the sort happened. The vest was completely unhard and entirely clean, as though the violent display had never occurred. The sa was true for the boa. “At least I didn’t throw them in the forge, eh?”
Luidis handed the boa back to , then walked the vest out into the no-man’s-land between us and the wall. He tossed the vest into the air, where it beca suspended by an invisible force. He walked to a rack of weaponry next to the forge and pulled down a crossbow half as long as he was tall. He loaded it with a bolt, muscles bulging as he drew back the string while keeping the end of the crossbow on the ground with a boot in its stirrup. He walked back and stopped a couple feet ahead of us, then aid at the vest.
There was a deep twang followed near instantaneously with a chock and the vest fluttered slightly. Luidis set the crossbow down and placed his hands on his hips.
“What mysteries await us, bros?” he said, then began walking downrange. Seinnador and I followed him.
The end of the bolt was lodged deep into the stone wall beyond the vest. The vest itself was, once again, unhard.
“Did it… go through the vest?”
“I don’t think ‘through’ is the right word,” said Luidis. “Unless you think of the vest like a tunnel.”
“The purpose of this part of the demonstration is that the item, though seemingly indestructible, will not prevent an amount of harm that would normally bypass the materials from which it is made,” said Seinnador. “My wishes are but ash, burned by the prayers of my enemy.”
He seed to be full of tangentially-related adages.
“The description did say it would stop an agitated chihuahua, but not much else,” I said.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringent.
“What’s a chihuahua, bro?”
“A small and bitey canine,” said Seinnador. “According to the tooltip, at least.”
“It told you that?” I said.
“System Insight grants context for unfamiliar terms.” He looked at gravely. “Whether or not that knowledge is better left unknown.”
“So…now you know what rawr ans.”
“I do, Arlo. I do.”
I considered the length of the item descriptions. From what I rembered, they were both pretty long. One even involved a massive scrawl of legal jargon that referenced the CIA and the FBI. Seinnador had only inspected the items for a few seconds. Did his ability allow him to digest all of the text, and the context for a dozen or more earth-related expressions in such a short length of ti?
“Alright, back to the line,” said Luidis, and we walked back up range. “Flathrower next, boss man?”
“I’d rather not. It is an inelegant spell that does not deserve its popularity.”
“Yeah, but it looks cool though.”
“Those who see never do,” said Seinnador, looking away wistfully.
“What’s wrong with the flathrower spell?” I asked. I also thought that would be pretty fucking aweso.
“Fire is the least useful elent, in my opinion,” said Seinnador. “It cannot be used close to allies, it has an incredible potential for collateral damage when the drapes and such catch fla, and it rarely kills with any expedience.” He tilted back and held his hands toward the ceiling. “The screams, Arlo, the screams.”
“I see…”
“But, very well. As you said Luidis, shock and amazent!”
Seinnador removed his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. He began by rotating his arm in a circle in front of him, which caused a shimring do of force to surround the three of us.
You have observed the spell Magic Shell
Magic Shell
Cost: 10 mana, plus an additional 10 mana per minute.
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Requirents: Dinsional Magic 10
Create a stationary dinsional mbrane in the form of a do that causes entities inside of the do to be partially protected from physical and magical forces occurring outside of the do. Amount of physical and magical attenuation scales with Intelligence and level in Dinsional Magic.
That seed pretty handy.
Seinnador then thrust his palm forward near the edge of the shimring field and orange energy pulsed down his arm. A massive gout of fla erupted from his hand and spread out into a concentrated cone. It traveled the entire distance from where we stood to the wall beyond my vest in an instant, engulfing my leathers and crashing against the stone, billowing out in a large circle. I still felt the heat through the mbrane, but it was more like a gentle space heater, whereas a fire of the magnitude I was seeing should have begun to singe my beard from this distance.
You have observed the spell Flathrower
Flathrower
Cost: 5 mana per second
Cooldown: None
Requirents: Physical Magic 15
You create a giant freaking flathrower. Size and intensity scales with Intelligence and level in Physical Magic.
Seinnador kept up the spell for a few seconds, then canceled the cast. A small waft of smoke rose from his palm and he dispelled it with a gentle puff, like he was blowing out a candle. The wall beyond the vest now sported an enormous new scorch mark, but the vest was completely unaffected.
“And now for a more refined spell. One befitting a gentleman of your caliber.”
Seinnador raised a hand, snapped his fingers, and the world shook.
A massive explosion, centered on the vest, tore through the range. There was no fire, only an eruption of force which sent all the dust and debris on the floor raging through the air. The pressure wave that made it through the do was enough to cause to take a step back, and the wind sent my hair whipping. The sound of the spell was loud, but fortunately not enough to leave my ears ringing.
They should really be handing out hearing protection with these goggles, I thought. I could only imagine what it would have felt like at this distance without the do, much less at the epicenter.
Again, the vest was untouched, though the floor and wall now had several new cracks in it.
You have observed the spell Explosion!
Explosion!
Cost: 10 mana. This spell can be charged at a cost of 10 mana per second.
Cooldown: 1 hour
Requirents: Dinsional Magic, Physical Magic
Waga na wa gumin!
Range: 30 ters. Size and intensity scales with Intelligence. Range scales with level in Physical Magic.
The spell’s description told everything I needed to know.
“How can I pick up the Physical Magic skill?” I asked.
“I see you have an eye not only for fine equipnt, Arlo, but also for cultured magics,” said Seinnador.
“Blowing shit up is a culture I can get behind, bros,” said Luidis.
“As with any magical school, being granted the option to acquire it as an intrinsic skill by the System requires you to have an appropriate attunent, and then to spend ti studying the nature of the magic and observing its effects. There are a number of tutors that I can recomnd.”
That didn’t really sound like anything I had done, and I’d already picked up both Dinsional Magic and Mystical Magic.
“That’s the hard way, bro. Tell him about the easy way, boss man.”
“There is no easy way,” said Seinnador, furrowing his nose at Luidis.
“It’s easy if you survive it,” said Luidis.
“What’s the easy way?” I asked.
Seinnador sighed.
“Again, you must have an appropriate attunent. However, if you are sufficiently…exposed to the effects of a magical school, you may be offered the option to acquire it.”
“What kind of exposure?”
I thought I understood, since I’d gotten Dinsional Magic from having my body torn through space and ti to get to Arzia, and Mystical from undergoing the Xor’Drel tribal ritual which channeled enough magical energy through to alter my physiology. Still, better to ask the question than to assu.
“You get shot up with elental spells, bro.”
“There are less painful spells that might be used,” said Seinnador. “But the more… invasive, the more likely you are to be offered the skill.”
“I see,” I said. “Can you shoot with so elental spells then?”
“I…” Seinnador paused and gave an appraising look. “The egg shall crack its own shell. Yes, yes. I presu you have an appropriate attunent?”
“Dinsional,” I said. “I already have Mystical, so it would complete the set.”
“Hmm, going for a mage build?”
“Sothing like that.”
“Well, I am afraid that it might be difficult for to help you in this matter. In my heyday as a Delver I was focused rather heavily on very aggressive attack magic. I fear a level one Delver would be unlikely to survive a single spell.”
I paused to consider my words.
“How much Fortitude would I need to survive you hitting with sothing?”
“That’s a complicated question. Unarmored and undefended, I assu?”
“Yes.”
“Then…” I watched as he did so ntal calculation. “Perhaps, twenty?”
“I’m good to go then.”
“Really? What difficulty was your Creation Delve?”
“Platinum.”
“And you already have a Fortitude of twenty?”
“Pretty much.”
No reason to volunteer that it was in fact slightly higher.
“I thought you were going for a mage build?”
“Not dying seed like the right move when I spent my points.”
“Well, it’s not the worst idea. Still. Does a level one platinum even have enough points to get to a Fortitude of twenty?”
“If bro went with Fortitude all the way, he’d get to nineteen, boss man.”
“That still isn’t twenty.” Seinnador tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at . “You were here to buy so equipnt, yes?”
“I was. Still am.”
“I see, I see. In that case, perhaps we should discuss so purchases before I accidentally kill you.”
“I can also draft you a will, bro,” said Luidis.
“I thought you were a smith,” I said.
“I’m a complex man with many talents and interests.”
“As is your right. Alright then, let’s look at so gear.” I took off the thick goggles and rubbed at my eyes where the tal had dug in. They hadn’t hurt, but they had been pretty uncomfortable. “You know, I might be able to give you so design ideas for new eye protection.”
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