Luke and the couple went back inside to see if the goblins had made any damage to the house. To their surprise, there wasn't anything broken and most things were where they left them. This signified that either they could control their destructive tendencies or they were so scared of their leader that they didn´t dare act without orders. On the bright side, the food was still in the oven and didn't look like it was tempered with.

“Let me reheat this quickly and we can have a bite while we discuss.” Sarah

And they did. The debate centered about what to do next: Sarah insisted on going to town saying that there was strength in numbers but was immediately turned down by both men. Luke repeated his previous argument that it was too dangerous and Jack added that more people wasn´t always good news. On his side, Jack suggested reinforcing the second floor, so that Luke could snipe them while they are getting close and then they can fight the goblins on the stairs which should give them an even bigger advantage. Luke wasn't entirely happy with the idea but acknowledged that that was the best plan for now.  Luke believed the first issue they had to solve was having an early warning system. Secondly, they needed to install traps to dissuade the goblins from attacking and, if possible, from even getting close. In this regard, Jack proved especially helpful: he provided a few simple ideas of traps they could make with what they had that could do some damage or at least make them lost their mind to anger disrupting their military order (on a sidenote, the traps looked suspiciously like pranks with a few elements changed. The clue to the traps origin was provided when Jack put a bucket full of rocks instead of water at the top of a door. While not being able to kill, it would infuriate and confuse the goblins).

After a fast lunch, Luke left Sarah and Jack to the trap preparations (or prank squad as Jack insisted on being called) while he considered the problem of the warning system. He didn´t know how to go about it but he thought that it was time to investigate one of his first rewards: the runic language. So he went to the skill window and touched the skill hoping for more information.

Runic Language It was the first language derived from the gods' own. It has intrinsical magic power that allows an experienced user to chant to enhance his spell or form glyphs and wards with its words. However, due to its closeness to the first language and its intrinsical power, just speaking it consumes mana. Cost: one word=1 MP.

‘That´s fascinating’ Luke was excited about this ability now. It seemed able to allow the speaker to enhance magical skills and enchant objects or places. And while the first thing could help his Magic Bolt get stronger, it wasn't actually that important to increase its power. After all, Luke wanted to utilize that move as a way to stagger more than outright kill the enemies. He had been lucky until now with his shots placement but he didn´t know if that would remain true in the future. Besides, if he desired to make the bolt hit harder, he could increase his intelligence or augment the number of bolts he could passively control and problem solved. No, Luke was more interested in the enchanting part, mainly because he had heard that ward were some kind of carvings made to protect a place or alarm its habitants of danger, and that sounded suspiciously close to the early alarm system they were looking for. Now the centre of the matter will be to develop a warding or enchanting skill, by only knowing the language. It didn't sound terrible hard but never judge a book by it's cover thought Luke.

He decided to start with something simple made of paper and then move up into wood when he could consistently produce the result he was aiming for, so he decided to experiment in his workshop. It turned out to be quite the difficult task: the runic language has thousands and thousands of symbols, some worked as simple letters, some represented words and others represented concepts that could go from “Today is a sunny day” to others where hundreds of pages would be necessary to fully explain them. And as Luke soon discovered, the challenge wasn't to create the corresponding skill (enchant or ward or anything similar) but to find the correct symbol to use. And even though he knew every symbol (he was given the mastered skill after all) and had decreased difficulty as a consequence, it still took him a dozen minute to find a basic enough symbol that could at the same time have some uses. It was a combination of two word category symbols: ‘sound’ and ‘change’. Luke visualized both hieroglyph and fused them with the idea that if there is a change in the surface where they are, it should create some sound and then wrote them in a piece of paper. When he was finished he watched them expectantly but nothing happened. Then he slowly, carefully, folded a corner of the paper. Abruptly a sound at the volume of a cell phone ringing was heard coming from the paper. Luke was full of joy. With this they didn't have to worry about being caught with the pants down. He felt a little tired and checking his status he realized that he had used 20 MP to create such a simple work, he could only imagine what would be required to make something more complex. He also tested if the amount of noise changed with how much he tempered with the paper, but sadly it maintained the same volume. The only issue that arose was how to make it stop. Fun fact: unfolding the corner didn't make it end because the act of folding left a mark (a very faint one, but a mark indeed). Annoyed with the sound, he burnt the paper until the symbols disappeared and was rewarded with silence. Sweet silence.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

DING

Skill Created! Enchant Beginner lvl 1 Allows to give magical power to objects to enhance their performance or give them a new ability. Cooldown: none Cost: variable.

Due to the high level of Runic Language the skill will evolve faster than normal

Now, Luke was really overjoyed. All that noise was really worthy, especially because of that last notification. It meant that he could make a fort by himself with enough time. Although he didn’t know if he had enough, he did assume to have a few hours before the goblins were back. The first thing he did was to search through his mind for a symbol with a meaning close to reinforce and inscribed in some wood he had. Another 10 MP were gone and the wood had a new marking. Then he lit up a small fire in the forge and threw the carved wood alongside another piece equal to it except for the enchantment. After ten or so minutes the normal wood had completely ceased to exist and the marked one remained in good state. THAT was good news. Luke checked and his mana has recovered to full so he decided to put the same enchantment in the house (yes he needed to put down the warning ward but it was his house, he couldn’t put anything, besides their lives, before guaranteeing its continued existence. Besides it was also a priority just not the top one). He inscribed the ‘reinforce’ symbol six times in each wall: two on the outside and two in each floor inside (he wanted them to be eight with the corresponding two in the upper floor outside, but it required much more time, and he prefered to use it in the alarm, he couldn’t argue in favor of marginally improving the house defences against installing a different and new type of defence). After being done he felt tired and kind of empty inside. He had spent more than 80% in that enchantment but the result were reassuring. He asked Jack to try to break through a wall and laughed out loud after seeing the face of Jack when the hammer he used (it was a big one closer to a mace, not one of those for nails) bounced off the wall and almost smack him in the face. And that wasn’t all.

DING

Skill Created! Warding Beginner lvl 1

Allows to give magical protections and defenses to a place like a building or enhance its currents capabilities. Cooldown: none Cost: variable

Due to having Runic Language the skill will evolve faster than normal

So, content with his work he rested to confirm the speed of Mana Recovery and thought about some alarm wards.