“Hey, Ellaazi, you been here long?”
“No.”
Ah, Ellaazi, you’re completely right. Let’s not bother with an abundance of words. Let’s keep it as simple as possible.
I sat down next to her, more than happy to be here. There was nothing I’d rather be doing in my free time than working on ways to get back home, and enchanting seemed like a good skill to have in that quest.
I scanned the empty classroom. “I’m surprised the Master isn’t keeping an eye on us.”
“They never do. But he’ll know if we ditch, so we’re stuck for three whole hours.”
“Unless we both learn how to do the Focus and Radiant Flame runes,” I pointed it out.
She waved her chunky hands at me. “These are made for sword hafts, and punching, not for fine art. Should have picked Defensive weapons.”
I waved off her words. “Bah, you can do anything you put your mind to. Sure, you might not be a natural, but I promise you, you can do it, and it’ll be a lot faster if you stop making excuses.”
“Easy for you to say, Earther. You have small hands.”
I frowned and looked at my own hands. “Hey! They’re a good size! For a human anyway. Nowhere near as impressive as those clappers, but they get me by.” I nodded at her hands and her perpetual scowl deepened. “You realize Torma has ham hands too? He manages just fine.”
“He’s a Grunir! Engraving is in their blood.”
“More excuses. Come on, let’s get to work. Where are the rods?”
“From the front,” she said, pointing to a box on Master Mornar’s desk. “There’s a note explaining that we need to copy the sigils with pencil first. Once we have it perfect, we can take rods, but we’re not worth the waste of resources otherwise.”
“Fair enough.” I pulled out the textbook from the desk and opened it up on the Focus rune page while she sat, head resting on her clenched fists as she wallowed in despair.
I took a sheet of paper laid it on the page and began tracing.
Ellaazi looked up and gawked. “What are you doing?”
I ignored her and finished my work, then pulled the sheet away from the book with a near perfectly drawn copy.
She snatched it from me and studied them. “How did you do this?”
I shook my head. “You haven’t been around pencil and paper much have you?”
“Barely at all. Nyvren are warriors, not pencil-pushers.”
“Then you should know this is called tracing.”
“It looks like cheating to me. And I don’t see how you could repeat the act with a rod.”
“You couldn’t. All I’m trying to do is familiarize myself with the flow of the rune. Cement it in my mind and in the muscle memory of my hand. And it’s not cheating because I’m not trying to pass this work off as my own. It’s for my use only.”
“Didn’t you already draw the Open Focus runes?”
“I did. But they weren’t great, and you haven’t yet. I figure if we work on this together, then we can help each other when we get to the Heat and Light runes?”
After a clearly epic internal battle that played out on her face, she pulled out a sheet of paper and laid it on the page. She glared at it like it meant to do her harm, then her eyes popped back up to me. “I can hardly see the rune.”
I nodded. “Thick paper. Not the easiest, but the outline is there if you press down and focus.” I began working over my own tracing, thickening the lines so that it would show through more easily for future tracings.
Once I had three identical reproductions from tracing, I set to copying them free hand. Repeating the process until I was satisfied I could reproduce them without the book. Then I checked on Ellaazi.
She had a couple of traced copies now, and while they were on the rough side, she was definitely getting better. I decided to move on to the Light rune to keep things moving.
It took her twenty minutes and five more copies before she noticed. “You moved on without me?”
“I did, yeah. Thought I’d get a head start so that I could help you with the Light rune once you were done. I made a copy in extra deep lines so that it would be easier for you to trace, rather than using the book.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
She grimaced. “My hands are cramping from holding the pencil.”
“You’re ascended, right?”
“Of course!” she said, brows furrowing.
“Then the cramping is good. The repetition is good. Your dexterity will be improving by the second. Now trace the Light rune and stop complaining. I’m going to make a start on Heat. We’re not leaving this classroom until we’ve created two Radiant Glow rods.”
The frown was back, a growl in her voice. “Who the hell do you think you are, telling me when I can and can’t leave?”
I supposed I had been a bit forceful, but I recognized the self-defeat in her, and once that insipid emotion sets in, encouragement doesn’t work. At that point, it was head down and grinding until the negative voices were chased away.
“You go whenever you want, Ellaazi. I just didn’t want you to look back and know that you didn’t give it your all.”
She smashed her massive fist down on the table, making the whole thing jump. “I am trying. I told you I’m not cut out for this.”
I tapped the last few copies she’d made without tracing. “Sounds like more excuses to me.”
She pushed them away angrily.
“Look,” I said, holding up my hands in a peaceful gesture. “All I’m saying is that I’ll sit here with you today for as long as it takes. I don’t care if we’re in here until evening meal. And if you want to come back next free day and practice some more, I’ll do it with you. That’s all I’m saying. The rest is down to you.”
She turned away, pencil gripped in her hand like she was about to commit murder with it.
I ignored her and got back to my own work. When I risked a side-eye over to her, I fought to keep the grin from my face as she’d started working again.
As the clock passed by the two-hour mark, Ellaazi gasped. I looked over and saw that her eyes were glazed, staring into space. It was an expression that I recognized now. I checked her identifier to see that her level had moved from 19 to 20.
“You’ll never guess what!” she shouted, grabbing my forearm with a big red hand. “Toughness and Mental Acuity have just gone up a point! I’m Level 10 in Mental Acuity now, Adam. Level 10!” she cheered.
That seemed awful to me as I’d started on 12, but I kept that to myself. “Well done, Ellaazi!”
“It’s one of the hardest to bring up, and my base was only 8 when I started here. It took eight cycles to get it up to 9! I never expected to get another point so soon.”
“Then I’m extra happy for you. You’ve worked hard today, and you deserve the increase.”
She stood up, and I thought she was ready to leave. Wordlessly, she zipped to the front of the classroom, running over the desks on all fours like a cat in full play mode. I laughed in spite of myself at the sight as she snatched up the box of enchanting rods and pounded back.
“I’m glad you’re not in my Unarmed Combat class, Ellaazi. I’ve never seen anyone move like that.”
She was buoyant. “I love fighting! None of the Archons want to fight me. They only let me fight Ressa and Yoru, but she’s rubbish and he’s too slow.”
“That bad, huh?”
“She’s fast and quite skillful, but she doesn’t have the power or aggression to be a good, unarmed fighter. Yoru is strong but so slow. He hasn’t landed a blow on me since we started. It’s boring for me.”
“In that case, next free day if my day isn’t filled by the Masters, you and I should have a spar.”
She waved me off. “You’re too weak. I will kill you by accident.”
“Heh. I wouldn’t expect to win, but I might have a few surprises for you, and my durability is the one stat that’s really took a hammering since I got here.”
“If you’re sure.” But her interest had returned to the box of rods. She pulled one out and removed the etching materials from her drawer, her hands practically shaking with excitement.
I followed suit, and we fell silent again as we both got to work.
It took me twenty minutes to carefully engrave my rod, and I was hit with that tingle of power that went with a level up.
Name: Adam Henshaw
Title: —
Level: 17
Class: Warrior/Mage
Stats:
- Toughness: 19
- Mental Acuity: 14
- Harmony: 18
- Total: 51
Progress in Class:
- Warrior, Level 3: 15/40
- Tradesman, Level 0: 0/10
- Mage, Level 5: 15/50
Mage Skills:
Enchant Item Level: 1
Imbue a receptive item with a magical enhancement through the use of runes. The enchantment lasts indefinitely or until the rune work is tampered with.
Regenerate (Personal) Level: 1
Spirit Burst (AoE) Level: 1
Flame Blast (Projectile) Level: 1
Flame Burst (AoE) Level 1:
I wanted to dance on the table with another level up. I also desperately wanted to test my new creation the moment it was complete. But I saw that Ellaazi was deep in concentration, tongue stuck out through sharp teeth, and I didn’t want to throw her focus.
I also didn’t want her to bite her tongue off if she got a surprise, so I spent the next twenty minutes trying to make it look like I was still busy. I took some joy in seeing that all of her runes so far were etched perfectly, but the suspense was killing me, and when she finished, I almost cheered.
She waved it at me, eyes bright. “I’m done! Does it look okay?”
“It does to me. Shall we?”
With a smile that almost matched the one she gave when her Mental Acuity went up, we both activated our rods, both functions at once. A bright glow filled the room as the rod warmed my hand.
I fist-pumped the air as I turned to her. “We did it! I can’t wait for our next Enchantment class.”
She deactivated the rod and turned to face me. My heart sank as I saw a look of anger on her face again. What now? For crying out loud, these people are mental!
She prodded me in the chest with a chunky digit. “I won’t forget this, Adam Henshaw. I was angry with you for ordering me about. I don’t know why I stayed, but… I’m glad I did.” She waved the rod in my face. “You got me this point in Acuity.”
“You’d have gotten there,” I protested, glad she wasn’t angry, just hard to read.
“No. I wouldn’t have. Not like this. I can move on now. I can keep up with the class. It’s more than just the rod. I’m glad you’re here.”
I laughed nervously, not sure what to say.
She didn’t seem to notice or care. “Come on! We still have some of our free day left, and I have some Jagga to celebrate my level up.”
“Mine too!” I said with no idea what Jagga was, but celebrating a productive day sounded good. Her eyes widened at my level increase and she hugged me.