Research and Developments

There was a quill and parchment in his hand in the blink of an eye. I didn't see him gesture with his hands, speak any words of power, and he didn't have a look of focus in his eyes, it simply happened. It was not like any magic I had seen before.

Then I thought a little harder. I had seen something like it before. My staff reduced the requisite chanting of my incantations of necromantic spells (though I knew no useful ones) by one syllable. This seemed like a simple enough conjuration, and I could certainly see how someone more advanced in the mystic arts with unknown magic items could have achieved the same effect, but a little more powerful, ultimately reducing the required chanting to nothing.

"Could you fill a room with these within a minute or so?" I said, gesturing to the paper he had reached out to me. "Maybe I could, maybe not. If I wanted to fill a room with paper, that ain't how I'd go on about it," the devil said. "So how are you reducing the incantation required? Is it a skill or a magic item?" I said. "Been putting your points into mind, eh, kid? Makes you slow and squishy and easy to break," he said. "Nonetheless, I'd like to know how," I said. "It's a small perk of mine, a handful of simple cantrips I can cast with less than a wave of my hand," he said, "So, deal or no deal, kiddo?" "What would you even want from me? There's every chance I don't live out the day," I said. "What do I look like I want, kid?" he said. "I think I'll take my chances if you want me to give up my soul to you," I said. "It ain't like it's so easy for me to take it. How about I just give you a little blessing, with all of its ups and downs, flaws and advantages," he said. "How does that work?" I said. "Hell ain't a place, and it ain't other people neither. You cannot get there by walkin' nor by simply telling me that you will. A blessing from a devil is a gift too, and it's a gift that will give you power, and tempt you to do the real fun shit. So what do you say? Sign the paper, or try and see how good that stick of yours will do against the fires of Hell?" he said.

What was it about me that kept getting me into situations where I was tempted by demonic power? I mean, I guess there's something about demons with Merlin and shit like that, but I haven't even got my wizard class yet. Is it going to get worse as I get more powerful? Still, if what he was saying was true, it wasn't like I was damning my soul by taking it; it seems like I will still be able to make my own choices, even if I did take this curse upon me.

"I will take that gift of yours, if you throw in a spell for me as well. I will need more to get my wizard class, and it sounds like the longer I stay alive, the longer that blessing of yours will have to tempt me," I said. "So long as it is clear that I will be the one picking the spell," he said. "Fuck it, it's a deal," I said.

The devil smiled wide again, and the contract burst into green flame. I felt a searing pain on the wrist of my left hand, and when I looked down on it, a symbol was being seared into my flesh. I screamed. I hated burns. But just as quickly as it had come, it went away, and then, in his other hand, the devil held a spell scroll out to me. I breathed out, took it and read it.

Conjure Pseudoportals: Conjuration Tier 3, Rank 1

Below is the sigil for the Conjure Pseudoportals spell of the Conjuration school. When you cast this spell, focus on a location or a creature on the same plane of existence. A window will appear in the air in front of you and in front of the target, connecting the space between you and the target. Sounds, physical objects, particles or energy cannot pass through the pseudoportal, with the exception of light, allowing line of sight through the portals. It is possible to cast spells through the portal, but any spell cast through the portal will immediately consume all of the caster's available mana, in addition to the mana required to cast the spell, and as such the caster will immediately begin casting from their health points, causing damage to the body. Further castings of spells through the portal will damage the soul directly. The pseudoportal will last for Arcana x 10 seconds. The pseudoportal will be 3ft by 3ft in size.

Requirements to upgrade the spell to Rank 2: Cast 0/10 spells through the pseudoportal

The incantation was twelve words long and laid out in verse, and the sigil was an intricate, complex symbol involving mirrored triangles, flowing loops and gem shapes. It was by far the most complex spell I had seen so far, and it was incredibly useful. Even without the ability to cast spells through the window it would be great for communication and spying. The ability to cast spells through it was entirely broken, even with the mana cost penalty. The ability to, essentially, cast any spell any where was the closest thing to game-breaking I'd found so far. In fact, I actually had a use in mind already.

There was also scratching from my journal, and I opened it. I had gained about another 25% of the experience needed for level 8 in my journey here, with the newest entry in the log saying

Log Received an Infernal Brand- Brand of Suffering, Exp to level 8 566/1000

There was also a new page in the journal, labeled Brands

Brands

Brand of Suffering You may use suffering to fuel your spells. When a creature in possession of a Journal in your line of sight is incapacitated with pain, you may feed on the suffering of others. You increase the target's pain. You recover mana in proportion to suffering observed. You increase the damage from your next offensive spell by a degree proportional to suffering observed.

That was just gross. I guess I could imagine a use if someone from the Guild ever tried to stab us in the back, but even then I hoped I could come up with less painful ways to resolve the issue. Hell, I was even willing to kill for the Guild if it came to it, depending on the situation, but additional pain was just useless cruelty. I suppose it was a little hypocritical. I had hurt creatures, creatures that were by all appearances thinking and feeling people, but it still felt like hurting my fellow humans would be crossing a line.

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"Thanks, wait, what should I call you?" I said. "I would much prefer if you didn't," he said. "Alrighty then. Mind if I use the library for a few hours?" I said. "Why make yourself my guest, kid," he said. "And, uh, could you turn off the smell again?" I said. "Already done," he said and snapped his fingers.

And I went to work around the dead bodies of my unknown compatriots. It was in the meaning of the word wizard, after all, to know things about the world. Gandalf didn't shoot lightning out of his ass, his most important skills were, in order of importance, a fast horse, good friends and more knowledge than anyone else on the side of the good guys. I went through the shelves, looking for a system, and I figured it out after about ten minutes of walking to and fro. The library was divided by subject after all, though there was a certain tilt to it all, like history being together with fiction, and philosophy and engineering very near to one another. There were a few subjects that were of most interest to me, and I hoped that I would gain knowledge from the skills I would advance by reading the books more than the information contained within the books themselves.

Arcane theory was the obvious priority. I wanted to know all about the history, politics and technology of the multiverse, but those were things of only indirect use to me. Understanding magic better could have very direct applications to my own spellcasting. If I was to put magic near relevant topics, where would I put it? I'd heard it called the Art before, but the way that these spells seemed to work was quite mechanical and exact, so I could see it being near geometry and algebra. At the same time, back on Earth, I had always found philosophy of metaphysics to be the subject nearest to the supernatural. I still had some time, so I went around all three of those areas, looking at titles, trying to find 'Arcana for Dummies' or the local equivalent.

It took me twenty minutes of reading titles before I found a book titled Incantations of Arcana among poetry of all things. As in, it was stuck between two works of normal, if alien, poetry. I felt no need to advance my poetry skill, or, at least no practical need, but finding this solved the question to me. There was no distinct section for learning the theory of the Arcane, at least not in this library. Instead, magical theory was separated by its composite parts, so, surely there would also be… There! I found my second book of arcane theory among treatises on abstract geometry. It was called Runes and Sigilwork in the Flghthagan Empire. This sort of arrangement meant that it was effectively impossible for me to find a good starter book, but I hoped that my massive new intellect would compensate.

Then, on the other hand, my Mind was only 4 and not fully filled out. According to Chum there would be at least one person that had entered the Tower with a Mind higher than mine by two full points, and, presumably, several with a starting point of 5. And, in addition to that, I hadn't actually become smarter. My mind was simply clearer and sharper, but that would have to do.

I started with the incantation book. I found that it was largely in verse, with very few explanatory or informative paragraphs. It was not in the foreign language or code that the spells in the Tower manifested in, and when I spoke the lines out loud nothing happened. Not that anything would happen without a sigil to visualize, but I didn't feel any inherent power in the verse at all. So I skipped over most of it, just reading the brief explainers and footnotes, and some of it began to start making sense.

The book spoke of the power of expression and the power of words. I could intuit that poetry, rhyme or incantation wasn't the only possible expression, but that it had to be communicative and rote. The author of this book didn't seem to come to the same conclusion, but I had an easier time, because they seemed to be certain that magic worked in ways that I knew that it didn't. Or, perhaps, the magic of the Tower was just presented in this concrete, exact way to make it easier to learn for someone like me. Then I did read all of the verse, and while it still didn't have magical power, I did feel something click. It wasn't a long book, and my reading speed had definitely increased, but it still took me about an hour. I did not understand what I had understood, but I did not understand it in the same way that I did not understand what changed when my Arcana attribute advanced. And I heard scratching from the journal.

Log Skill gained: Arcane Theory, level 1 Experience gained from doing nothing, experience to level 8 568/1000 Achievement: Scholar- Be among the first 1000 people to learn a skill in the Tower. Experience gained, experience to level 8 668/1000.

I flipped to Achievements, the last one had given me a reward.

Achievements Scholar (Arcane Theory): Increase numerical effects of spells by 0.1 x Arcane Theory level

Not much, but stacking multiplicative modifiers is a pathway to many abilities some consider unnatural. Already, this skill plus the Brand of Suffering would be a slow start to what could eventually become an exponential growth of power. Not that I would ever use the brand. Not unless it was a life or death emergency. Which, how likely was that? 'I am not going to Hell, I am not going to Hell, I am not going to Hell,' I repeated under my breath.

I went outside to check the time remaining. I knew that I had spent a few more hours since returning to the Guild room. The countdown was at 35:22:11. I still had time, but it was running out. Worse, I was afraid of growing tired. If I tried to sleep now, I would probably awake with less than six hours left to gain a level and defeat the monster that had made me Coward. So, I was probably not going to sleep, unless I can convince someone in the Tower to wake me up after a nap of 1 hour or less. I still had two things that I wanted to research in the library.

First, the book about sigils. I had thought that the poetry book was abstract, but I had a hard time finding any words in this one. It was all angles, symbols and algebra. I had never been good at any of those things, but at least a lot of it wasn't very advanced. And some of it, I thought involved artistic expression once again. I had expected that. The sigils of the spells were really rather abstract, but a lot of them had at least some symbolic relation to the effects of the spells. At the end of trying to figure out the book I came to this conclusion- the spells in the Tower used your voice as a form of expression, using the mana and mental construction of the sigil in your mind to produce the effects described in the spell scrolls and the Journal. I didn't know what that was, or how it did it, but I was pretty sure I was right about the mechanism. And just as I had that thought…

Log Skill improved: Arcane Theory, level 2

There was one last thing I wanted to do before I tried out my new spell. I didn't know what using up all of my mana would do, but I thought I had been close to it before, and I would probably be fine, but I still wanted to do all of my research before doing so. What I really wanted to find first was a translation dictionary for whatever language Glouach's journals had been in.

I found it eventually. Or, rather, I found a book that was written in both the Glouach language and (what looked like) English side by side. I tried translating a sentence from the journal by looking up words in the book, comparing them with the journal and the words in English. I managed to get 'Sea and the sea and the be tortoiseshell and the my research'. Damn it, why couldn't the squid just write American. I would need to either a) become much better at linguistics, b) spend days on this, or c) find someone who actually knew how to do complex translation work. I would start with the third option, if I managed to get my wizard class and return to the guild.

For now, it was time to perform a profane ritual of the dark arts.

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