CHAPTER 30 - AETHER BURN
[ A Skill has increased in level! ]
[ Skill: Melee Combat | Novice, Rank 3 | 27% ]
[ Your Inner Workings Knowledge has increased in level! ]
[ Inner Workings | Novice, Rank 4 ]
[ New information has been unlocked! ]
[ New Codex Entries (27) have been unlocked! ]
[ New Skill Discovered! ]
[ Gained Skill: Battle-Crafting ]
[ A Skill has increased in level! ]
[ Skill: Battle-Crafting | Novice, Rank 1 ]
[ Item Gained: Carapace (Corrupted) x20 | Rare | Material | This hardened shell can be used in most recipes that call for shells, plating and other mostly flat reinforcement pieces | Attributes (Per 5 Used):
>> +2 CON
>> +2 STR
>> +5% Water Resist ]
[ Codex > Inner Workings > Novice, Rank 4 > Attributes | You have gained insight into the attribute system! Where (Skills) increase your proficiency with specific tasks within their purview, (Attributes) enhance an aspect of your personal power, and are automatically applied. ]
The notifications faded.
Levan only stood.
The body of the monstrosity faded, and Levan felt the many wounds and cuts all along his body.
He held up his forearm, bare skin red and irritated from even the slight brushes with the creature. His sleeve was somewhere on the corner of the room, discarded.
“You live, Leg-Walker?” Sal asked, tenuously, in his mind.
He thought of the creature, how he’d been fooled into thinking the squid monster was the size of a cat, not…not however large it really was.
“Squid…monster?” Sal asked, and Levan heard the hurt in question.
“Not monster,” Levan told Sal, told himself, though the memory of the squid’s massive eye, far exceeding the aquarian window, appeared in his mind.
He shook it off.
“Not monster,” he said, looking down at the pile of carapace.
“That was a monster,” Levan added, with a nod towards the floor. His lip turned in disgust.
“Aetherize.”
[ Carapace x20 (Corrupted) has been added to your Aetherial Stores! ]
Levan turned his face away, letting the burn of the particulate hiss at his skin, feeling the burn as it bubbled the skin on his jaw.
Mmmmm.
He took in a breath, letting it fill his nostrils, and it dissipated in his lungs.
“Right,” Levan said, taking a literal inventory.
He studied his shovel on the floor, broken in half, and quickly set about making a new one.
[ Item Gained: Stone, x3 | Withdrawn from Aetherial Stores ]
[ Item Gained: Wood, x2 | Withdrawn from Aetherial Stores ]
[ Item Crafted: Stone Shovel ]
The wood melded into form, the stone at the head, and a tight tension in the air crisped with a satisfying pinch as the pieces of the shovel fit together. Things were finally starting to feel natural. Feel regular. Feel like he was getting the hang of it.
He was starting to see the landscape around him as materials. Started seeing broad offerings that, with a pinch of Fabrimancy, could become solutions. It wasn’t a solved puzzle, Aetherial Crafting—but he finally felt like he was at the table studying it. And while it was just a start, he’d finally fit those very first few pieces together.
[ Your Ability Aetherial Crafter has gained a level! ]
[ Ability Core | Aetherial Crafter | Novice, Rank 4 ]
[ You have learned a spell: Aether Burn ]
[ Crafting Resources discovered: Ingenuity, Discipline ]
[ Aetherial Crafting Resource discovered: Transversal ]
[ Aetherial Crafting Recipes now Discoverable! ]
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
[ Codex > Skill Resources | Not to be confused with natural resources like wood and iron, Skill Resources are pools of power that your skills and abilities pull from for their power. Familiar resources may include mana for many spell casters, Spirit for naturalists and primalists, Rage, and more. Mundane resources for biological beings often include energy, focus, and calories. ]
[ Codex > Ability Core > Crafter > Ingenuity & Discipline | The spark of genius cannot come when called, and must be fostered…for most people. You are not most people. (Ingenuity) is gained upon completing crafts and gathering materials, and can be spent to enhance other crafts, learn recipes, and more. (Discipline) is the other side of masterwork—and represents your ability to manually craft without getting tired or losing focus. Discipline is stubborn, hard work. Your discipline resource is invisible most of the time. When the limit is hit, however, you will begin to burn the discipline resource. Your ability core will allow you to go beyond what is natural, but expect any negative consequences of this push to also be supernaturally enhanced. ]
[ Codex > Ability Core > Aetherial Crafter > Transversal | Transversal measures your interactions with the Aether, whether that is through sending items into the aether with your (Aetherize) skill, or retrieving them with your (Pull From Aether) skill, you are engaging in transversal. All transversal causes physical wear on non-Aetherial creatures. Expect exhaustion and fatigue. Additionally, however, with too much transversal, expect compromises to the balance or reliability of effects. Those Aetherial things you wish to make solid may find themselves less tangible than you aimed for. Physical artifacts that you wish to send to the Aether may linger when you wished them gone. ]
…
Levan paused.
“That’s a lot of concepts,” he noted.
Codex responded in a more conversational tone than he’d ever heard before.
“Your increase of Inner Working Knowledge and increase of your ability core at the same time created an influx of information.”
“Huh,” Levan thought. “You lost your monotone.”
It was true.
The Codex usually delivered information in a pseudo-voice, a mental artifact that was neither speech nor sight nor inherent presence of information, yet all at the same time.
Now the voice had a bit more color to it, a bit more up-and-down, a bit more flavor.
“I progress as you progress.”
Huh.
Levan slung the shovel on his back.
He took a few steps, then stopped.
“I learned a spell,” he said. “I almost forgot. What was it?”
Aether Burn.
[ Spell: Aether Burn ]
[ Aether Burn | Spell | Ranged, Contact | Damage Type(s): Aether, Fire | Cost: Minor Transversal | Proficiency Required: Spellcasting Novice, Rank 4 or Higher ]
[ Skill: Spellcasting | Novice, Rank 5 ]
Ah.
“How do I increase my spellcasting skill?” Levan asked the Codex.
[ Codex > Spellcasting > Cast spells to increase your spellcasting skill ].
Levan sighed and began tracing his hands around the wall of the dirty chamber, looking for an exit, preferably one in the direction Sal had pointed him to.
“Kind of a barrier to entry,” he murmured. “Just cast more spells, stupid. Okay, sorry.”
“Condescension was not meant,” the Codex replied, in that voice that just barely crested monotone.
“Yeah, no worries.”
Levan’s fingers slipped over something—a ridge of encrusted salt and residue that looked organic enough that further inquiry didn’t seem in his best interest.
He moved past, then stopped, returning to the ridge-like bump.
He traced the line down.
That could be a doorframe, right?
The dimensions seemed about right.
[ Codex > Skill Increases > Failure | Attempting to utilize skills and perform tasks can increase your skill levels. These increases are neither success nor failure dependent. ]
He turned back, almost as if the Codex was the voice behind him, not just in the back of his head.
“Try casting a spell?” he asked, with a small smile.
Magic was cool. He had magic. Sort of.
It didn’t feel like magic.
What else is it when you dematerialize and materialize something?
He thought of the soldier in the burning alleyway at Sandesar.
Painful, is what it is.
This could be a fresh start, though.
A spell would have been nice while fighting that lobster thing.
You’re in a new world! You can learn magic!
Why did this feel so different from Aether Crafting?
Before he knew what he was doing, Levan was standing roughly ten feet from the door—and it was a door, now that he knew what to look for. A rectangle meant for a form taller and more slender than him, sure, but underneath all that salt, crust, and muck was a way out of the chamber.
“Okay, first things first, you square your shoulders,” he said to himself.
The first step was always squaring your shoulders and placing your feet sturdily on the ground, shoulder-width apart.
If something was going to get done right…
…It was going to start with getting your shoulders squared and your feet shoulder-width apart.
He held his hands out, palms spread.
That was what dope combat magic was supposed to look like.
“Aether Burn,” he said out loud.
Nothing happened.
He nodded.
He hadn’t been feeling it.
“Aether Burn,” he tried again.
Still nothing. Felt no different.
“Maybe I need like—”
[ Codex > Spellcasting > Magical Implements | Some spells require materials, tools, or other components to cast. ]
“Oh, well, you should have told me—”
[ Aether Burn | Required Implements: None | Required Components: Spoken, Freely Chosen ]
“Oh.”
He frowned.
This was stupid.
He could learn later. He had to go. He had to free Sal.
“Learn,” Sal encouraged in his ear. “To see the curious pursuit of knowledge, the tentative leg-walker feet-steps is…is like watching the luminous new-born bulbs floating up upon their silver wombs, under the moon—light—spill.”
Well, then.
Sounds pretty, Levan thought.
“It was beautiful,” Sal said, wistfully. “It was the universe, in that moment.”
Levan set his jaw.
There was so much pain in the squid-monster’s voice. He’d free him. He swore it.
“I am no monster,” Sal said, sadly. “Why do you keep referring to me as such when you know me?”
Levan opened his mouth, trying to explain and feeling guilty.
“I guess I’m just thinking about the juxtaposition, or whatever it is. That you sound so gentle, even though you look so scary. It’s just how I…I guess how I feel like I’m supposed to treat you.”
“Flippancy, irony?” Sal asked.
“Yeah, I guess, like…like it’s funny,” Levan said, shifting uncomfortably.
“I don’t understand. It seems…forced. Defensive. Must I swim beneath your ironies and preconceptions?”
Levan nodded.
“I gotcha,” he said. “I think it says more about the type of stories we tell back home. Everything has to be ironic, flippant, some kind of joke. You’re not allowed to really be sincere, or play it straight.”
“Play it straight?” Sal asked.
“I’m sorry, Sal,” Levan said, nodding to himself. “You’re my friend, I think. And, yes—you’re a little terrifying to me, full disclosure. But it’s not because of who you are. I’ll stop calling you squid-monster. Squid-friend.”
“I…Levan,” Sal said, shaking his head. “I have not asked for clarification, because you continue to use this word, but…don’t know what a ‘squid’ is.”
Another wave of guilt.
“Sal, then,” Levan said. “My friend, Sal.”
“Friend?” Sal asked, gentle voice hesitant. “Truly? Or is this something forced and false? It does not feel force and false, but—”
“It is neither forced nor false,” Levan said, smiling at Sal, noticing himself phrasing things the way Sal might.
“Truly,” Levan clarified. “Truly friends.”
“Oh, my,” Sal said, voice thick with emotion. “I never thought. How fortunate I am…how marvelous life is.”
Thoughts occurred.
Flippancy, maybe. A bit of irony.
So Levan didn’t say anything.
He just nodded.
“Friends,” he reiterated. There was no hint of irony or flippancy, or defensiveness.
That was good.
Levan then turned his gaze towards the door, coated with at least two feet of solidified muck.
He could use the pickaxe—but then he’d never learn.
And he needed to start taking himself seriously. Take the idea that he could grow, and not just survive here, more seriously.
“Aether Burn,” he said, in a loud, clear voice.
Nothing happened.
“Aether Burn,” Levan said again.
He tried not to feel like an idiot.
It would have been hard if it were just him.
But it wasn’t just him.
And Sal didn’t think he was an idiot.
“Aether Burn,” Levan said, the strength in his voice surprising even him, in the dark and wet chamber.
“Aether Burn.”
“Aether Burn.”
[ Skill: Spellcasting | Novice, Rank 5 | 3% ]
Well.
That’s a start.
He stretched his legs, shook his ankles out one at a time, then planted it back on the ground, shoulder-width apart.
“Aether Burn.”
“Aether Burn.”
“Aether Burn.”
