The Runic Artist

Nate gauged Caroline’s reaction to his offer of trade. At face value, one Master quality Sigil was worth less than one Master quality Sigil and two Journeyman quality, but that was before factoring in the extent of what you could do with the sigils. Illusion was likely amazingly powerful, but also niche, at least in terms of combat. That was for most Enchanters anyway. Their creations were, after all, static. They could make a wand that created an illusion of a fireball or maybe something that duplicated the wielder. But an item enchanted to create an illusion did not make the holder an Illusionist. More likely, it found usage in enchanted items related to stealth and hiding. Useful, but nice. A limited market.

Nate smirked slightly as Caroline tried to school her expression to try and regain the upper hand in the negotiation. The Barrier Sigil he offered was not nearly so limited. It was perfect for static items. Everyone would be interested in enchanted items that could protect them. It was also incredibly versatile in terms of what sigils it could be paired with. Even more daily use enchantments like barriers over windows that kept out dust while letting through the cool air. He knew he was offering her something that could vastly improve her business and give her an edge over the competition, which she was apparently already dominating in terms of enchanting.

If he was going to be in competition with her, he might’ve cared, but that wasn’t the path he wanted to take. Not yet. He didn’t have the time to devote to building a business empire with runecrafting as the foundation. Not unless he wanted to help some people get a runecrafting class, which might be useful, but was definitely a long-term goal. His short-term goal was to get the most out of the Royal University and keep progressing. To do that, in a timely and smart manner, meant making a trade, and this was the best one he could come up with.

Caroline leant back in her chair, eyes narrowed, “Why should I believe you know even one Master quality Sigil? Aren’t you only level forty?”

“I am level forty,” he lied. “And I am not lying about the Master quality Barrier Sigil. So, do you want it, or not?”

Caroline stared at him thoughtfully, “Is that the only Master quality Sigil you know?”

“That’s not what we’re doing here,” he replied with a confident smile. “Yes or no? If the answer is, no, I have other places to be.”

He sensed Luc’s amusement through the man's body language and appreciated how his mentor didn’t interfere. This was unlikely to be the only time he was forced to trade Sigils with an Enchanter and the experience was valuable to him.

Caroline stared at him in silence for almost thirty seconds, eyes flickering as she was likely doing mental calculations, before she huffed and muttered, “Fine.”

She grabbed a piece of paper from her desk and began drawing on it with meticulous care. She moved quickly, before spinning the paper to face him, three Sigils drawn on it. Divine Translation told him what all three were and he filed them away before glancing back up.

Reinforcement Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

Durability Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

Illusion Sigil (Quality: Journeyman)

He tapped the page, pointing at Reinforcement and then Durability. “These are fine, but this,” he continued, tapping the Illusion Sigil, “is only Journeyman quality. Not Master.”

He felt it as both Caroline and Luc stiffened, though he suspected for entirely different reasons.

“That’s a Master quality Sigil for Illusion,” Caroline growled, standing up behind her desk to attempt to loom. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“I am,” he stated simply. “And if this is how you do business, then our business is concluded.”

He stood, already thinking about his next step. A Journeyman quality Sigil was going to make it hard to push the rune to Legendary, but he’d make do, somehow. Taking a few steps towards the door he sensed mana gathering from behind him before it was instantly suppressed.

Spinning he found Caroline standing very still, a small metal needle hovering in front of her eye. Even afraid, she still muttered out, “You owe me a Master quality Barrier Sigil.”

“No, I don’t. You didn’t give me what we agreed in trade, so I don’t owe you shit,” he replied, finally starting to get angry. He should’ve just robbed her. “Either, you’re not a good enough Enchanter to tell the difference between a Journeyman Sigil and a Master Sigil, or, you’re trying to fuck me over. Either way, I don’t want to do business with someone like that.”

To drive home his point he finally unleashed Awareness of the Runic Artist to its full extent, flooding his mana into the skill as he bore down on her veil. It held for longer than he expected, which was only three breaths, before it shattered. The sound of tinkling metal hitting the floor followed as the enchanted item that was the source of her veil was destroyed by his Skill.

Caroline Lambert

Clever Enchanter (E) (47) / Dexterous Silversmith (R) (22) / Clever Metal Mage (U) (4)

He watched as Caroline’s face paled. She was enough of a mage, he suspected, to know that he was the one who had shattered her veil.

Luc spoke into the silence, “Show him the proper Sigil.”

“And if I don’t?” she asked, venom leaking into her voice.

“What do they call me, on the battlefields?” Luc asked casually, despite keeping the metal needle pointed at her eyes.

“Thousand Needles,” Caroline whispered. “But you can’t kill me. I have friends among the Nobility. You’d be dead inside of a week!”

“I don’t need to kill you. I can just stab you with a few needles coated in some nasty toxins. Nothing lethal, but you’ll have an absolutely terrible few days. Maybe you’ll be able to pay someone to cleanse them, but it’ll be expensive. And I can come back and do it over and over and over again. Your shitty wards can’t keep me out. So what’s it going to be?” Luc asked, leaning forward threateningly as the needle drifted a little closer to Caroline’s face.

The Enchanter stared at them both with hatred in her eyes before she pulled the paper towards herself carefully and began drawing again. After a couple of minutes she spun the paper towards him while pressing her lips together.

Illusion Sigil (Quality: Master)

Nate memorised the symbol before glancing up at her.

“Now, the Barrier Sigil,” she said, half-demanding, half-begging.

He leaned forward, pressing his hand against the paper, before activating Runic Creation and burning the sigil into it.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to do that from the start?” he said derisively before heading for the door. He sensed the look Luc shot the Enchanter before he followed Nate out.

He had considered not giving her the Sigil. She definitely didn’t deserve it after the shit she’d just tried to pull. But he was about to be surrounded by the upper echelon of Etrua’s society. People who Caroline claimed to know well enough to potentially cause him problems, and more problems was the last thing he wanted. He just wanted time to develop his Skills, focusing on his runecrafting and art, and do some Dungeons with Kiri to grow his levels when they were ready. Dealing with shifty Enchanters and whatever Nobility or merchants she could drum up to cause him grief just seemed like a waste of his time. So, he gave her what she wanted, what they’d agreed on in trade to begin with, in the hopes that she left it at that and didn’t cause him more problems. It was a distant hope, but he could dream.

“You handled yourself well in there,” Luc said, breaking him out of his reverie as they exited the shop to the sound of a birds singing. “Honestly, you might’ve been able to take her, even without me.”

Nate shrugged, “Who knows what she had in her spatial storage. She’s a well respected and wealthy Enchanter. Could’ve been anything in there…but you’re probably right. If it makes you feel better, she left out some schematics so I stole a few Apprentice level Sigils off her as well.”

Luc started laughing and patted him on the back.

“It’s like you’re picking up on the lessons I haven’t even taught you yet!”

Nate rolled his eyes as Frick slipped out of the Familiar Contract to alight on his shoulder, joining in the laughter.

*************

Nate smiled down at his creation as he went over all his notifications while waiting for Frick to return.

Congratulations on creating an Illusory Class Core Veil Rune (Master Quality).

Your achievement has been recorded.

Empowered Amplified Magic 21 > 22

Empowered Runic Artistry 32 > 33

Runic Creation 34 > 35

Imbue Intent 36 > 37

Awareness of the Runic Artist 34 > 36

Runic Knowledge - Concepts 33 > 35

Conceptual Material 29 > 30

In the end, he’d made the rune even more complicated than his initial plans. Originally he had suspected he would be working with a Sigil like Mislead or Fake or something similar. As such, he wanted any identification attempts to return a ‘fake’ result while concealing his true Class. However, the Sigil of Illusion had offered him some additional options. The reason he’d decided to change his approach was for the same reason that he was able to uncover the Unseen in the Tournament.

Even though they had veiled their true Class Core and somehow returned a false result, the Concept he’d sensed had been Obfuscation. They hadn’t been able to conceal the Class Core. Which made sense, in a way. If you completely concealed your Class Core, that would beg the question of why it returned a false result. Using the Concept of Concealment would’ve made sense if your goal was to hide your Class Core, but that wasn’t the Unseen’s goal, nor was it his. He needed to return a false result. More importantly, he needed to return a false result without raising any suspicions from anyone with specialised Identification skills, or worse, someone like him that could sense when Concepts were at play.

So he’d arrived at his masterwork. He truly did consider it the best and most complicated rune he’d created to date, usurping his Gravity Control rune. Every sigil, including Illusion, was paired with a Power Sigil. It meant the drain on his mana would be greater, but he was confident he could handle it. He’d see if Kiri could as well, as her Mana Reserve wasn’t quite as high as his, though in fairness, she was also less reliant on it. Running his fingers over the design he checked the connections as he visualised how the geometric shapes would create the mana density fields and how that would alter which Sigils were activated, and to what extent.

The inner core of the rune was Concealment, paired with the Class Core sigil at four different points around it in the shape of a diamond. The outer section was filled with eight Illusion Sigils, in such a way that two Illusion Sigils would interact with one Class Core sigil. Due to the geometric pattern, the Concealment Sigil in the inner core should receive almost half of the powered output of the rune. Then, as it interacted with the Class Core sigils it would render his Class Core utterly concealed. Finally, the Illusion Sigils would interact on the outer edge with the Class Core sigils, creating an illusory class core. With his Imbue Intent added to the mix, the illusory class core should return the false classes and levels that he and Kiri had in mind, while the remainder of his intents could be used to reinforce the concealment.

Frick finally entered with Kiri in tow.

“You got it working?” she asked excitedly, sliding into the seat across from him.

He spun the page to show her and saw her blanch slightly.

“That’s going to be tough. Give me a little while to practise?” she asked as she pulled the page closer to herself.

Considering her Soul Engraving required messing with their soul energy, he was more than happy to give her as long as she needed to get it right.

Trying not to disturb Kiri while she practised using her own soul energy, and he could tell through his Awareness of the Runic Artist that she was doing exactly that, he instead decided to consider how he was going to approach the induction tests for his subjects at the University.

Ignoring Frick, who’d settled in to use Conceptual Material on some metal, he started going over the subjects he’d decided to do. He had eight subjects that he was initially going to take. That meant eight induction tests, with each seeing him lumped into somewhere between the basic and advanced classes, depending on his performance. Deverell’s advice on not managing an expert rating on the Enchanting induction assessment was a good one. He didn’t want to end up a slave because of his Skills. The question was, should he tank it even further and only go for intermediate? Were there any benefits to starting in a higher-level class for the subject?

He rolled his eyes as he answered himself. Access to better materials and more advanced knowledge. In his case, he was hoping that translated to sigils, but given his experience with Caroline he was starting to wonder if all Enchanters were just assholes.

So, he had to get advanced in the Enchanting subject induction. Then there was combat. He would aim for intermediate, alongside Kiri, and it sounded like Null would be joining them. That meant Coralie likely would as well. The other four Guild attendees were question marks on whether they’d manage a basic or intermediate rating. He thought Flash might swing intermediate, but he doubted Britt would. He might be wrong though. Hopefully she’d surprise him. He’d really enjoyed her friendly attitude during the Tournament.

Skill Development, Concepts and Embodiment, and Mana and Affinities were all likely to get intermediate ratings. That is what he would aim for anyway. He wasn’t sure on Skill Development but if the tier of his skills was relevant, then he should manage intermediate. Concepts and Embodiment, while he had a lot of work to do on his Embodiment, to shift it away from Wandering, his ability to sense Concepts should let him breeze through that subject induction. Mana and Affinities, he suspected his Awareness of the Runic Artist would let him pass easily.

That left his last three subjects. Dungeon Knowledge and Monster Studies were both liable to see him in the basic course. He was more than willing to admit he didn’t know shit about either. The University should change that. Finally, he had his one true love, Art. He was going to manage Advanced in that as far as he was concerned. He’d even shoot for Expert, if he could. Thinking about it made him smile and he spent a few minutes daydreaming about it before Kiri interrupted him.

“I’ve got it! Let’s do this!” she said triumphantly.