“Ignis fulmina!” Calavia shouted as three bolts of fire were conjured before her, she mentally commanded the bolts to fire towards her target, her target being Arthur with the force shield up and surrounding him from all sides. The three bolts clashed harmlessly into the shield and fizzled out without doing any noticeable damage to the shield. Arthur smiled at the result.
Calavia skipped over with a smile as she began to bombard Arthur with questions. “How did it hold up? Was there any damage? Did you feel the impact? Do you want me to use a stronger spell this time?”
“Hey hey, slowly down.” Arthur had to practically block her mouth to stop her from asking questions. “The shield worked fine and you can cast another stronger spell now.” Arthur removed his hand from Calavia’s mouth, she pouted and walked to the other side of the room they were in.
The room was a practice room, it was designed for mages to practice their spells in without putting anything or anyone in danger. As such the walls and ceiling were enchanted to prevent any damage from any of the common spells novices to evokers would commonly use.
Calavai reached the other side of the room and readied herself to cast a tier two spell this time. “Ignis hasta!” This time three larger spears of fire were conjured, and with a little flick of her hand they were flying towards Arthur at full speed. With a loud crack they slammed into the shield and dispersed into sparks, but the shield wasn’t completely unscathed, it had shaken quite a bit with that impact but held together strong.
“Wow! I’m surprised it survived that!” Calavia shouted from across the room. “I know of one more spell that might be able to break it. Just give me a second to cast it!” Arthur's eyes went wide at that statement.
“Wait what!? No, don’t do that!” Arthur shouted back after his momentary mind blank.
“Too late now! Ingia pila!” Calavia shouted as she finished her spell, a large ball of fire was conjured before her extended hand. She gave a small pushing gesture and the ball exploded forward towards Arthur who braced for impact by hastily reinforcing his shield with his staff. He poured as much of the energy stored within the staff to repair and reinforce the shield, he succeeded in repairing it but not reinforcing it, it appeared the spell imbued within the staff had far more limitations for how the mana would flow and operate.
When the fire ball crashed into the shield Arthur was forced to put forth all his willpower towards constantly repairing it as it was damaged. When the fire ball eventually dissipated Arthur had almost completely exhausted all the mana within the staff, clearly blocking a fireball head on was a little past its capabilities.
Calavia skipped over with a smile as if nothing serious happened. Arthur on the other hand had dropped to his knees halfway through from the strain of channeling all that mana, when he saw Calavia looking at him with such a carefree attitude he just glared at her.
“It looks like the shield can withstand a fireball. That should be able to keep you alive even if you fight something way above you in terms of skill.”
Arthur took a moment to breathe before he spoke. “You nearly killed me with that. If I didn’t use up all the energy within the staff the shield would have broken and taken me with it.” Arthur slowly stood up from his knees as he spoke and pointed the end of the staff in her face.
“Well you covered my mouth when I was just trying to ask you questions about the shield, and besides the enchantments in the room would have kept you from getting really hurt. At worst you would have a few burns and I am perfectly capable of healing wounds like that. I heal worse injuries every day.” Calavia pushed the staff away and pointed her finger at Arthur in turn.
“That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have hurt, I still feel pain you know.” Arthur returned the favor and pushed Calavia’s finger away before pointing at her.
The argument continued for another minute until both their stomachs began to inform them of the disappointing lack of eating.
********
The two were seated in a random tavern they came across as they went round the district looking for somewhere to eat. The tavern in question was called the prancing harpy and they mostly had soups to serve to their customers. They each ordered a soup and hastily gulped it down. Once they were both done they resumed their argument with more level heads than before.
“You stopped me from talking because I just asked you a few questions.” Calavia returned to her initial argument.
“You also naked me like five different questions without giving me a chance to answer any of them, and that five was only after I stopped you.” Arthur used the time while they ate to formulate a proper defense and argument for himself.
Calavia paused as if she was about to refute his claim, eventually after a moment of struggling to find the correct words she spoke. “Fine, I’ll try to be more considerate when asking you questions by just asking one at a time. But you need to promise not to do stuff like that again.”
Stolen story; please report.
“You promise?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then so do I.”
The duo soon left the tavern and went on their separate ways with Arthur returning to the guild to look around in the library and Calavia going back to work. Upon entering the library Arthur began his search on the magic his mage staff used, specifically the barriers and shields that he suspected were alteration magic as they fit the description. But his search for anything relating to alteration magic aside from generalized explanations of the topic as a whole he didn’t find anything. The same thing applied to the other types of magic outside of the four evocations.
It was very odd for such important and interesting topics to be so hard to find, so Arthur decided to ask the librarian about it and see why that might be. “So you are interested in alteration magic are you? Well I am sorry to say this, but until you become an evoker you will not find anything within the library sections you are authorized to look through. Such topics are not just hard but also very dangerous for those learning the arcane as well as those who are not.” The librarian with a name tag that read Caecilia Florens said to Arthur in a soft tone. Mrs. Florens was an older woman that looked to be in her late sixties or perhaps her early seventies.
Arthur in response just awkwardly thanked her and returned to the apprentice section to try and find something else to spend his time learning, and eventually he did. It was an old dusty journal with a red cover, the pages were a slight yellow and the ink was slightly faded yet still readable. The author of the journal was someone named Brexius Sanguine Bane, based on the writing and grammar he used he was likely to have been a noble, or someone who frequently interacted with nobility.
23rd of Limestone, 367, 3E
Mother disapproves of me catching rats for my experiments. She always nags me about acting proper and to leave rat catching for the servants. The only problem with that logic is that the servants always kill the rats, which would be fine if it wasn’t by stomping upon them and crushing them. Under normal circumstances I would have simply told Mother what I need them for, but if she learned what I was attempting to do with them she would lose her mind.
Arthur was confused at why this young Brexius would require rats for his experiments, until he flipped the page and found diagrams for what was a crude yet incredible diagram for a flesh golem powered by arcane magic. It was a very small golem compared to what Arthur received from his former alchemy teacher Georgius Calvus, but it was incredible to look at. Whoever this Brexius Sanguine Bane was he was most certainly a genius, and Arthur most certainly needed to keep this book with him to learn as much as he possibly could.
*********
Arthur approached the front desk of the library where Mrs. Florens was seated reading a book. When she noticed him she placed a bookmark where she was and turned her attention towards Arthur. “Your back already. I hope you found something else within your skill grade to read.” Like a happy grandmother Mrs. Florens gave a smile and spoke as if Arthur was her own grandson.
“I found a few books to read, is it alright if I take a few of these with me?” Arthur presented three books and placed them on the desk for Mrs. Florens to look at. The first was just some evocation training exercises, the second was a book of more effective brewing techniques for alchemists, and the last was the journal of Brexius Sanguine Bane.
Mrs. Florens picked up each of the books and gave a quick look, but when she got the journal she furrowed her brows and opened it up to the first page that contained the name of the author. “Brexius Sanguine Bane? I don’t think I am familiar with anyone by that name. This is a personal journal though so you might find something interesting in it.” Mrs. Florens placed the journal on top of the other two before she brought out a book.
“I need you to sign this and list the books you are checking out. It's for security reasons, in the past some young mages would take books with them and ended up losing them. This way we have evidence of who took what.”
Arthur just nodded and hastily filled in his name as well as the three books he brought. Once he was done he thanked Mrs. Florens and quickly made his way back to his home. Thankfully Mrs. Florens wasn’t at all suspicious of the journal, but that was probably helped by the other two books he brought. They weren't completely new topics but Arthur still hoped they had something interesting.
When he eventually did arrive home he immediately locked the door and double checked the back door, then he blocked all the windows to prevent anyone from watching him. Once he was confident that no one could be watching him he placed the other two books on the kitchen/living room table and took the journal into his bedroom.
Arthur found a comfortable spot on his bed he opened up the journal and continued where he left off, reading over the diagrams of the tiny flesh golems made up of dead rats. In a weird way he could not describe he found the diagrams beautiful, every little detail served a purpose showing that Brexius spent a lot of time working on these designs. One of the notable things regarding them was a page dedicated to the materials and how to actually construct one.
As it turned out creating a golem required not just knowledge regarding enchanting but also alchemy, the flesh golems required a sort of artificial blood that could only be created with alchemy. The enchanting would set the behaviors and motor functions of the golem itself. The little rat flesh golem was very complex, but it was still far simpler than the one he received from Georgius Calvus and far more feasible at the moment.
‘If I am going to at least try this out I will need some dead rats with a minimal amount of damage to the bones and flesh. I just need to find a place with lots of rats running around, that leaves out most places with any people living there that have jobs that pay anything decent.’ Arthur began to pace around the room as he tried to think of a place that might either be abandoned with lots of food for rats to eat, or something else like rat breeders which were apparently a thing.
‘Wait. That thieves guild called Misery's end, they had a bar as their headquarters. I highly doubt anyone has tried to buy a building with such a horrible history, if so then the building has just been sitting empty all this time, that would be more than enough time for rats to start moving in.’ Arthur grinned as he found his solution and quickly put on his overcoat before placing the journal in his dimensional bag.