The next day didn't go as well as Ruth hoped. Of course, she had been hoping to instantly learn ten thousand new runes and upgrade the local citystone straight to Mythic-tier, so Josh thought she should temper her expectations a tad.
But despite the lack of immediate benefits, she did gain something from studying the citystone. They both did, actually. While there were complex circles of runes on the bottom, as Ruth had expected, Josh realized something else important just by stepping close enough:
The citystone was, in fact, a runestone.
He wasn't sure if he gained more insight into the matter from his Runestones spell or his Sensitivity score. Either way, once he was within a few feet, it seemed obvious. The citystone had a single rune at its heart, shaping its power at its most basic level.
At first, he thought it was a Capacity rune, like the one he was using for his runestone talisman. That was his first impression of the rune, that it was one of capacity, of containing power. But that was just what he felt. When he got closer, putting his hands against the crystal and peering inside its cloudy depths, he didn't see a Capacity rune.
Well, at first he didn't see anything. He was looking for what turned out to be a rune the size of his head in the center of a crystal too large for him to wrap his arms around. Peering through several feet of cloudy crystal was hard, and then he realized he was looking at it from the wrong angle and had to move.
But when he did get a good look at it, it didn't look like a Capacity rune. It had some similarities, but there were other parts he didn't understand. In fact, if anything, it looked like two runes had been smashed together—
He started and stumbled back when he finally realized what he was looking at. It was a combination rune, Capacity and something else. Something that Ruth didn't already have.
“Hey, Ruth,” he said, tone casual. “Can you pick apart one of those combo runes? Get the little runes out of the big ones?”
“No,” Ruth called from under the citystone. Someone had found her a wheeled flat cart, the kind that mechanics used to work on cars. She rolled out, bouncing on the rocky dirt. “I looked at my Vareo rune. Uh, I mean my Gravity rune. It's a combination of Earth and Air, both of which I have. I can see how they merge together.” She shook her head. “But too much is smeared and mixed and even missing. I can't really reconstruct them.”
Well, that was disappointing. Josh made a hum of agreement as he looked closer at the rune in the center of the stone. He thought he had the shape of it right, but he had no way to measure the relative depths of the lines. Should he just start carving it and hope he got it right eventually?
“What about the other way 'round?” Mary asked. “Can you plop two runes together and make a combo?”
“I dunno!” Ruth chirped. She wiped sweat off her forehead. “I think it's more likely to work, I guess. I just don't have enough experience yet. What would the combinations even be, anyway?”
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“You have all four Basic-tier elements, correct?” Darius asked, in the tone of a lecturer who knew the answer. “There are eight Exemplary-tier elements based off those, though I must confess I don't recall the combinations.” He started ticking them off on his fingers. “Gravity you already know. There are also Ice, Metal, Storm, Explosion, Lightning, Destruction, and Creation.”
Ruth frowned up at him. “Waaait...” She counted on her fingers. Then she counted again, then frowned up at him. “Unless there are duplicates, or more than two elements to a combo, then four elements should form six pairs, not eight.”
“Destruction is no element, Creation is all elements,” Josh said, distracted. He turned his head, trying to look at the rune from a different angle. Yes... he could see the angle of the lines. Not perfectly, but it was something. Should he try to measure them, or eyeball it? “That's for the Basic-tier elements. The Improved-tier element combinations do the same thing, but I don't remember the names.”
“I'm surprised to hear that you know the elements, especially the higher-tier ones,” Darius said.
“Yeah!” Ruth piped up. “Don't you normally roll Archers and go the Hunter route?”
Josh blinked. “Wot?” He shook himself. “Yeah, I normally go to physical-type classes, but I've tried a few others off and on.” He nodded at Mary. “Besides, Archers and Hunters can learn spells easy enough. If Mary can do it, anyone can.”
She socked him in the arm with a grin. “Jerk.”
“I wish we had a Mage,” Ruth said with a pout. It looked silly, with her down on the ground looking up at them all like that. “I can see hints of the runes when Mary uses her spells. Maybe I could learn new ones from watching a Mage!”
Josh wasn't sure that a Mage would be able to learn any spells for the higher-tier elements without help, at which point it would be moot. It was certainly possible, Josh knew that. His sister's best friend had made a habit of re-learning spells on the first day of every reset. All four Basic-tier elements, all four Improved-tier elements, all eight Exemplary-tier combinations, and all eight Master-tier combinations. By the time he was finished, he would be level 20 before he had even ranked up his spells.
But that man had been an exception in more ways than one.
“Not sure that would help,” he said with a chuckle. “Good luck getting some fresh-faced Mage to learn a Lightning or Storm spell for you.”
Ruth sighed and rolled back under the citystone. “I think I've got something here,” she called. “I already know about half of these runes. Once I finish the rest, I might be able to figure something out!”
Josh decided to follow her lead. He took out a small piece of wet clay and started sketching the rune into it with a stylus. Both he and Ruth had been surprised when they realized wet clay counted perfectly fine for using and learning rune blueprints. Though they made for terrible runes, and tended to explode wetly if you tried to run mana through them, they worked well enough for confirming you had the rune right.
It took Josh four hours to finally earn the rune. He and Ruth got plenty of odd looks from people using the citystone in that time. He didn't care. His heart had just about stopped when he saw what rune he received.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have learned the blueprint Runestone of Power and Capacity (improved). When worn as a talisman, this stone grants a +1 bonus to the Power and Capacity scores. When crushed, this stone grants a +2 bonus to the Power and Capacity scores for 8 minutes.
He smiled. This had potential.