I woke up before dawn. The world was quiet—no birds were chirping, no carts rattling outside the manor, and no orphans running around. However, I couldn’t sleep. Not even Elincia's warm presence by my side and the allure of the heavy blankets were enough to keep my mind at ease.
I slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Elincia’s sleep, and slowly walked to the desk, avoiding the floor’s loose boards. [Light Footed] made it easy. I sat down, grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote Wolf’s Birthday Present. A little further down, System Avatar’s Message. Then, New Skills.
The warning from the System Avatar hung over my head like a sword. I wondered if there was a correlation between the System giving me new Runeweaver Skills and the fact we were ‘behind schedule’. I crossed ‘System Avatar’ out. Unless he figured out how to contact me, my hands were tied. For all I knew, Corruption might be shrouding the world in darkness as I wrote, yet my most pressing concern was securing Wolf's birthday gift.
I wondered if Opoki, the merchant of enchanted items, was still in town. His catalog, however, wasn’t the most useful. Unless Wolf was a secret fan of floppy cutlery, Opoki had nothing left of interest.
Wolf always has been the orphan who needed me the least. I had gained his respect and trust over the months, but he was different from the rest of the orphans. The manor was only a temporary residence, a place of passage for him. His real family awaited him in the tribes, and Wolf was already strong enough to survive the Farlands. As much as it saddened me, Wolf would be abandoning us shortly.
A good present would be something he could take back to his home.
I wondered if a hunting knife would do the trick. Wolf was pragmatic, but a more meaningful present would be better. Even if he could visit occasionally, I would like him to have a memento of his days at the orphanage. A reminder of the people he met and the friends he made.
“Rob?” Elincia grumbled, sitting on the bed and rubbing her eyes.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” I replied.
Elincia’s eyes gleamed in the darkness of the room.
“It's not morning yet… the tournament!” she said, suddenly alert.
“That’s tomorrow. I’m just trying to come up with ideas for a birthday present for Wolf.”
Elincia yawned and laid down again with the blanket up her chin. “What about a bag of light stones? I’m sure orcs would benefit from illuminated interiors.”
“It’s a present for Wolf, not the tribes. Light stones—” I replied, but I stopped mid-sentence.
Stones. The word triggered a memory I haven’t paid much attention to. During our trip to the Farlands, the orcs had saved me from the Lich’s undead minions. To avoid engaging with the creatures up close, they used slings. A shiver of excitement ran down my spine. The tennis ball-sized stones had shredded through the flesh and bone of the undead like the discharge of a minigun.
I jumped to my feet and grabbed my journal from the nightstand.
“I assume we are not having a make-out session this morning?” Elincia raised an eyebrow.
“I will make it up to you, I swear,” I said, leaning on the bed and kissing her forehead.
A sling would be the perfect present for Wolf. It would help keep him safe and be a nice keepsake of the orphanage. I rubbed my hands together, thinking of something better than a sling. An enchanted sling.
I exited the bedroom and went down the deserted corridor toward Ginz’s door. I knocked, and a moment later, the craftsman appeared in the doorway, his yellow nightcap tilted to the side and his eyes barely open. He yawned and greeted me with a movement of the head.
Respecting sleeping schedules wasn’t part of our friendship.
“Do you know how to make a sling?” I shot at point-blank range.
“You bet I do. It’s one of the first recipes Craftsmen learn. Ask Elincia how many windows we smashed trying to hunt birds,” Ginz replied, rubbing his eyes.
We exchanged a knowing grin.
“I want to craft a sling for Wolf’s birthday. It has to be sturdy yet stylish, maybe with decorative branding on the stone pouch and nice needlework,” I explained. “Wolf might grow as much as Risha, so it has to be long enough for his arm. Also, it has to be silent. The sling acts like a whip when released, and we don’t want it to scare Wolf’s game.”
Ginz grabbed a small piece of paper and a charcoal pencil from his desk and wrote down the requirements.
“What enchantment do you have in mind?” Ginz asked.
“I’m not sure. I’m leaning towards a wind enchantment, but I have to figure things out,” I replied, lost in thought. If I could decode the runes on Firana’s cape, I might develop a boosting enchanting for the sling.
Then it hit me. I hadn’t mentioned enchantments to Ginz yet. He seemed to notice my expression because he raised an eyebrow mockingly.
“Dude, if you don’t want people to know you can enchant stuff, don’t go around leaving a multicolor trail of enchanted light pebbles,” Ginz scolded me like a teacher would with a rebellious student. “I have stolen like twenty of them, including the ones I used to craft Elincia’s earrings for the party.”
“Right…” I muttered.
I juggled so many things that I hadn’t noticed the missing pebbles.
Ginz put his hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, brother, I won't say anything as long as you keep providing me with blueprints and crazy ideas,” he said with a wide grin. “I’m well on the way to reaching level forty. Maybe in a couple of years, I will turn into a Tinkerer or some crazy Prestige Class. You know the saying: don’t slay your swiftest skeeth for a sour steak.”
“Noted. You won’t betray me as long as I’m useful,” I sighed.
“People become friends for many reasons,” Ginz replied as he gathered clean clothes from the drawer. Then, he waved his hands and expelled me from the room. “I’ll have the sling ready before lunch, Boss.”
I returned to my bedroom before anybody could appear. Risha was as much of a chatterbox as Shu, and Astrid had developed a weird, servile attitude toward me. It wasn’t surprising, considering she had spent the first half of her life trying to please Mister Lowell and the second part obeying the System.
As I closed the door behind me, I heard water splashing. Elincia was bathing behind the wooden screen, and the room smelled like flowers. She hummed a happy tune.
“You know what is funny? You never try to peek while I’m changing or bathing,” Elincia greeted me.
“If you wanted me to peek, you wouldn’t use the screen,” I replied, sitting at the desk and organizing my notes.
“Maybe I’m using the screen to tease you,” Elincia said.
“And maybe I’m aware you are trying to tease me, so I’m teasing you by ignoring your teasing,” I replied. It wasn’t like Elincia’s nightgown left much to the imagination. “Also, I don’t want to spoil that mystery bath pic you like to flaunt so much,” I laughed.
I suspected Elincia used the screen because she was embarrassed.
“You are insufferable, you know that, right?” Elincia splashed on the other side of the screen.
I let out a tired laugh.
Twelve orphans with little sense of privacy and an overloaded schedule were more than enough to keep us busy day and night, but at least the worst part had passed. We had secured a good income source, saved the orphanage from famine, and gathered enough allies to protect us from direct attacks.
I wondered what had happened with Lyra Jorn. After watching my illusions at the feast, she seemed eager to start her internship at the orphanage. However, she hadn’t shown up yet. I made a mental note to have Corin send Lyra a message, and I focused back on Wolf’s birthday present.
Runeweaver’s Encyclopedia: The worst pen is better than the best memory. [Identify] Runeweaver’s Encyclopedia is a detailed compendium of the Runeweaver successfully identified runes. Further information will appear as the Runeweaver discovers new uses for known runes. The Encyclopedia is only visible to the Runeweaver but can be wholly or partially shared with other Runeweavers.
I didn’t know if the System suddenly decided to support me more or if [Consulting Detective] had actually improved [Identify] 's explanations. Still, that paragraph was more than I had been getting for the past half-year.
The explanation also gave clues about runeweaving. The “further information will appear as the Runeweaver discovers new uses for known runes” part led me to believe linear interaction wasn’t the only way of enchanting. I just hoped things wouldn’t get too crazy when adding more than two runes to the same enchantment.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Rune Debugger: No more unwanted explosions in the workplace! [Identify] Rune Debugger provides the Runeweaver with a testing interface to experiment and assess potential enchantments without engraving runes into an object. It provides a sufficiently realistic prediction of the enchantment the Runeweaver desires to perform, although the accuracy of the prediction greatly depends on the contents of the Runeweaver’s Encyclopedia.
I grinned. I had been dying to put [Rune Debugger] to the test, but with the tournament around the corner, I haven’t found an excuse to sit down to draw runes. My only complaint was that System Avatar did not give me these skills from the very beginning.
I opened the Runeweaver’s Encyclopedia, and a thick old book appeared. Unlike my illusions, I could touch the Encyclopedia. The cover was made of dark leather adorned with delicate blue crystal inlays all over the surface. None of my detection skills worked on it. [Identify] showed the book's name, while my mana vision only caught a blur of energy.
The Encyclopedia had six entries: fire, light, gradual, instantaneous, absorption, and recharge. I instantly noticed that the order wasn’t random. The first two were elemental runes that determined the enchantment's effect. The following two were control runes that determined how the effect would occur. The last two were source runes that determined the enchanted object's mana source.
I felt dumb for not realizing it before.
Even with a small sample, I had a general idea about how enchantments worked. Each runic circuit had at least three parts: the effect, the trigger, and the energy source. I suspected a fourth group of runes, one used to modify the effect or the trigger, existed.
I rummaged through my notes until I found the page with the runes from Firana’s enchanted cape. There were seven of them, but two matched the ones in the Encyclopedia: Absorption and Instantaneous. Being flash-grenaded by Loki had paid off. With those two runes out of the way, there were only five unknown runes.
I examined the circuit. The ‘effect rune’ had to be Wind, and the ‘power rune’ was Absorption, which left five runes to encode the ‘trigger’. I knew the central ‘trigger rune’ was Instantaneous, so the other four had to work as modifications to create the effect of control. I closed my eyes and envisioned the cape around Firana’s shoulders the day I bought it. The cape seemed to respond to Firana’s movements while ignoring the passersby.
Unlike Opoki’s enchanted shoelaces, which came to life with anyone’s command, the enchanted cape recognized its user. I smiled. This was getting good.
Each time Firana struck a pose, the cape followed her movement, which meant it also recognized her movement and its direction. I scratched my incipient beard, deep in thought. Fire, Light, Recharge, and Absorption were straightforward runes. However, there was a massive jump in complexity between producing light or fire and recognizing the user's precise movements among a crowd of people. The cape also seemed to recognize the user’s movements as the trigger to activate the Instantaneous-Wind effect.
What were runes in reality?
In hindsight, I had been disingenuous. The cape's effect seemed too complex to be reduced to seven runes. I wondered if the System Avatar was hiding something from me. I knew very little about the runes' true nature, but those questions would have to wait until the end of the tournament.
I focused back on my notes. There were thousands of ways of sorting seven runes, but it was safe to assume only one result on the enchanted cape. If that was the case, it was also safe to assume there were rules about the order of the runes. I examined the light stone in the corner of the table. Light-Gradual-Recharge. My heart raced. The runes in the warm blanket followed a similar order. Fire-Gradual-Absorption.
Effect, trigger, power source.
Eureka.
Elincia emerged from behind the wooden screen, dressed in her usual beige Renaissance-esque dress, and put a hand over my shoulder. I couldn’t help but move my eyes toward her. She was as beautiful as ever.
“It’s Wolf’s birthday today. Don’t get too entranced in that,” she said, kissing the top of my head.
“I’m trying to enchant something for him,” I replied. I couldn’t hide the excitement in my voice. “Firana has her fluttering cape, and Ilya her Cooldown Bow. It seems fair he also gets an enchanted item.”
Elincia smiled and messed up my hair.
“Why are you so adorable?” She whispered. “I’ll go prepare breakfast then. I’ll pass the word you are not to be disturbed,” she added, kissing me again before skipping to the doorway.
I was left stunned. I hadn’t been called adorable by anyone other than my grandma since I was thirteen. I didn’t expect to get a compliment out of nowhere.
Wolf might not be the orphan who required more monitoring, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t constantly looking out for him. Unlike Ilya, who had a massive issue with her identity, or Firana, who had a problematic family, Wolf’s troubles were more subtle. He used to feel like a foreigner at the orphanage; he missed home, but that was a thing of the past.
I sighed. Even if the orphanage was a home for him, Wolf was to return to his home among the orcs. I couldn’t decide for him and didn't want to put my thumb on the scale either. Wolf had to determine his future path for himself. That was the only reason I hadn’t pushed him to get a class, even if I needed to contact the System Avatar.
I wouldn’t turn the orphans into tools like Holst or the Marquis.
The only thing I could do for Wolf now was support his decision.
I focused back on my notes. Even if I wasn’t physically there for him, the enchanted sling might help Wolf. I needed to figure out how the runes worked.
The light stones and the warm blanket had the same rune order: effect, trigger, and energy source. If my suppositions were correct, Wind was the first rune in Firana’s fluttering cape, and absorption was the last, so I assumed I was well on track. I smiled. That dramatically reduced the number of possible combinations from a few thousand to a bit more than a hundred.
This was where [Rune Debugger] came to play. Enchanting hundreds of runes would drain my mana pool before I could even reach ten percent of the total combinations. And that was without considering the danger of creating an unstable combination.
I took a deep breath and used the skill. A blue, translucent box appeared before me—the same color as the System prompts but tridimensional. There were no markings. At first glance, it looked like a simple illusion, like the ones I made with raw mana before I got the [Minor Illusion] skill.
I made a mental note to remember that, per [Identify]’s description, [Rune Debugger] wasn’t completely reliable.
I closed my eyes and carved the runes of a light stone inside the blue box—light, gradual, and recharge. The box flickered and turned green. I smiled. After a moment, the runes inside the box disappeared.
“What about using Gradual only,” I muttered.
I carved the sole rune. Gradual alone shouldn’t be a successful enchantment because it lacked an effect rune. Just as I expected, the box turned yellow.
“Green for successful enchantment and yellow for unsuccessful. Gotcha,” I said.
I looked at the scar on the palm of my left hand. During the fight against the Assassin and the Flame Mage, I had overwritten the runes of the light stone, resulting in its violent shattering. That was a good reason to avoid blindly testing runes. If enchanting could produce something as powerful as the Aias Sword, an accident with runes could be equally dangerous.
“Let’s see what happens if I mess with the runes,” I muttered.
I wrote the runes of a light stone and then overwrote the Instantaneous rune over the Gradual rune. A moment passed, and the box turned a bright red.
“Just like the traffic lights, perfect,” I grinned, silently thanking the System Avatar. Even if we were ‘behind schedule’, [Rune Encyclopedia] and [Rune Debugger] would significantly speed up the process of learning runes.
An idea started crystallizing in my brain: considering the characteristics of Firana's cape, a wind-powered sling that boosted the projectile speed seemed possible. Sure, a fireball-throwing sling was way cooler, but I didn’t want Wolf setting the entire Farlands on fire, and I didn't know how to make the sling enchant a projectile.
Could an enchantment enchant other objects? Probably not. Enchanting seemed to be reserved for Enchanters and Runeweavers.
I got back to work. My idea was simple: match the unknown ‘trigger runes’ with Wind, Instantaneous, and Recharge to see how the enchantment works. I summoned [Rune Debugger] and wrote down the runes. The box turned green.
I grinned and imprinted the runes on a small pebble, trying to use as little mana as possible. The enchantment was successful, just as predicted in the Rune Debugger. Then, I poured a bit of mana into the Wind Stone, and suddenly, air started gently flowing from the rock’s surface. I branded the pebble a ‘control pebble’ and put it aside.
New rune learned!
A new entry has appeared in the Rune Encyclopedia: Wind.
Total number of entries: 7.
I smiled, pleased with the big, stylized seven floating before my eyes. Now that I had a benchmark against which to compare my new attempts, I summoned the Rune Debugger area and added the first unknown rune to the Wind-Instantaneous-Recharge circuit between Instantaneous and Recharge.
The box turned yellow. I checked my notes, wondering if the order of runes mattered. I wrote the rune in second position this time, between Wind and Instantaneous. The box turned green. Strange but not unexpected. It may be safe to assume the unknown rune worked as an activation condition, so it had to be written before Instantaneous.
As [Rune Debugger] said it was safe, I grabbed a second pebble. Maybe the System was messing with my neuroreceptors, but the idea of getting more runes had me on the edge of my seat. I carved the new four-rune circuit into a pebble. Four runes required much more mana than a three-rune enchantment.
I ignored the cold shiver of my mana leaving my body and activated it. The wind blew from the stone's surface, and that was it—no notable change. I tried again, but both enchantments were the same for all practical purposes.
“That’s strange,” I muttered as I reviewed my notes.
The cape recognizes its user.
The cape recognizes movement.
The cape recognizes direction.
The cape recognizes the user’s intent to activate the effect.
For the cape to flutter, the user's movement and the direction of the enchantment’s spell seemed to work together. Under that assumption, Movement and Direction runes were dead code without the other. It would be impossible to know if the new rune was one of those.
I wondered how to test if the new rune served to recognize the pebble’s user. The solution was simple: I needed a helper.
I jumped to my feet and approached the door with the wind pebble in my hand. As soon as I crossed the doorway, I almost had a heart attack. Next to the door, a fully equipped Zealot stood perfectly still. The eerie presence startled me.
“Good morning, Robert Clarke,” Astrid greeted me. Her androgynous voice came muffled under the golden mask.
“What are you doing?!” I asked as I tried to calm down my heart rate.
“I’m performing my quest. I’m making sure Robert Clarke stays safe,” Astrid replied with her best anonymous Zealot voice.
I sighed.
“Is it necessary to wear your Zealot uniform, though?”
Her stern persona cracked as one of her ears flicked.
“Maybe?”
I rubbed my temples, wondering how I was going to get a religious fanatic to adapt to civilian life. Out of all my problems, this would wait a while before I could address it. At least Astrid knew about my hidden class. She was the perfect helper.
I looked around. We were alone in the corridor.
“Astrid, listen. This is an enchanted stone. It uses mana to produce a small wind current. Try to feed it mana while it's in my hand,” I said, raising the pebble to eye level.
“Yes, sir.”
Astrid raised her hand with the palm forward. Mana flew through her body, but the stone rejected it. She pushed a bit more, but the result was the same. The pebble remained undisturbed.
“That’s enough,” I smiled.
The experiment was a success. The pebble recognized me as its user.