Dom and I met up for lunch with Chester and Lily in their place above the shop. Luckily, I’d brought our lunch, serving up something out of my inventory. We ate meat pies that I’d saved from my old, freshened stew tucked into pie shells that were folded over for neat little pocket pies. I could carry stacks of twenty of each of them. I missed my pantry and wardrobe from the Eroomtsim loop, but I’d just have to be patient. We’d go through that dungeon soon enough, but Dom had to get to level ten first. I figured to get us both to level five or six on all these lovely professions, him to class level five, and then head out to the gnoblin dungeon to ten, and finally hit the Eroomtsim Castle dungeon until we couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Before I teach you any spells,” I told Lily, handing her the book I’d finally managed to make, “you need this spell book so that you can keep them all in order.”
“A spell book?” Lily’s eyes widened, and I understood why. “Where did you get this? I thought only the guild handed these out.”
“I wouldn’t show that to anyone else,” I warned her and Chester both before Chester got the idea that he could sell them in his shop. “It’ll naturally stay out of sight unless you purposely want to show it to someone, which you shouldn’t.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, running her fingers over the rough cover. It wasn’t pristine, but it would hold the spells she wanted. It was really just a rough pad of paper with the first page as a cover.
“I know it’s not pretty.” I felt bad that I hadn’t put more artistic flare to it.
“It’s precious,” Lily replied quickly.
“What do I owe you for it?” Chester blustered over his wife’s awe.
“A silver for the book and a copper for each of these,” and I handed him a stack of spell scrolls. “There are enough duplicates in case you don’t get a spell into your book on the first try. You can sell whatever Lily doesn’t copy into her book.”
“Spell scrolls?” Chester leafed through them.
“They’re all first level spells, but they should be good.” I shrugged.
“These will sell for several gold each.” Chester thumbed through a stack of over forty spell scrolls. “This is a fortune. I haven’t enough gold in the whole shop to pay you for these.”
“That’s okay.” I waved his awe away uncomfortably. “Pay me a copper each now and then whatever you think is fair once they sell. I trust you.”
“Here are your potions, as well.” Dom pulled the small crate out of his inventory and set it on the table too. Chester pulled back from the wealth on the table.
“Don’t fret, Chester.” Lily laid a delicate hand on his. “It will work out. We will simply put them out a few at a time.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused at Chester’s reluctance. He would normally try to sell the table out from under you while you were sitting at it.
“We can’t sell all this for you,” Chester blew out a breath and ran a hand through his unruly black hair.
“We want to,” Lily explained quickly, “but it would alert the merchant’s guild. These scrolls are far too valuable to sell in a little shop like ours.”
“I’m about to come back from Eroomtsim with treasure that will burst your store’s walls,” I argued, not because I thought they were wrong, but because I worried that I wouldn’t be able to sell much of anything if this was a problem.
“We could take that.” Chester lifted his hands palms up. “I can ship any extra treasure to the cities on the coaches, but the scrolls are as contraband as the spell book you’ve created. Without the seal of the Magic Guild, these scrolls will get us banned.”
“Politics?” Dom asked, a heavy sigh following his rhetorical question. “Even here?”
“If we sell unauthorized scrolls,” Lily went on, “we will not be given any magical merchandise that might be provided by the Magic Guild.” Lily pushed the scrolls back toward me. “Not that we get any magical items out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Then buy them from me personally,” I said, pushing the scrolls back toward Lily. "Hear me out.”
Lily started to shake her head, but I took her hand. “Dom here is going to show you how to learn the spells, since he just learned the rest of these. You only pay for the ones you use, one copper a piece. Then I’ll take the rest to Siff with us and sell them there.”
“You’ll get in trouble for selling them in Siff,” Chester tried to warn me, but I shook my head.
“I have contacts in Siff who will buy the rest,” I assured them. I knew people in Siff, but the trick was going to be to sell them the scrolls and then kill them before they could report the sale.
A complicated set of looks were exchanged between Lily and Chester, but they finally agreed without more convincing. Chester took out a stack of coppers and we settled in to do some learning.
“You should take these,” Dom handed me a stack of three scrolls.
“What are these?” I asked, even as I was reading new spells.
“They are the spells I received with my spell book.” Dom gave me a smug smile.
“More spells?” My eyes widened, and I squealed with glee. I read the spells as Dom instructed Lily on how to transfer a spell from the scroll to the spell book. I barely paid attention, so excited about new spells that were nothing like what I’d experienced before. I didn’t care that they were low level. They were new variables.
The first spell was Lesser Disguise, and I was over the moon happy about it. It should have been a totally useless spell, but I knew just how we’d need to use it once we reached the cities. The second spell was a Lesser Glamour, and it looked almost like it might overlap with the previous spell. The final spell was called Shhh.
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I had no idea how to transfer the spell into my spell book except to cast it, and while Dom was explaining it to Lily, my mind just didn’t understand what he was saying. Instead, I set out to figure it out myself, a new and exciting puzzle. I shifted my eyesight so that it blurred just slightly and reached into the scroll. The paper was saturated with blood that was saturated with Dom’s mana. I could tell that it was Dom’s mana because of the flavor I sensed and associated with it. It’s not like it tasted like toasted marshmallows, but like a person had to have a very sensitive palette to discern the layered differentiation in the mana itself.
If I were to state it in a very simple way, I ate the scroll, and it appeared in my spell book. If I were to state the truth, it was much more like my mana merging with the mana in the scroll so that it learned the shape of that other mana. Not only was the mana signature unique to Dom, but it was also unique to the spell itself. I lost myself in the sensation of it such that I nearly fell out of my chair as the spell manifested itself gloriously into my spell book.
“You look like you’ve just had really good sex,” Lily’s voice was teasing. I could tell that she had not had the same experience in copying a scroll. “I think I want to learn her way of doing it.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Dom gave a sardonic chuckle, amused at my drowsy, cat-ate-the-cream look. “Karma has a feel for this mana stuff that we mere mortals cannot comprehend.”
“Shut up, you." I sent a very half-hearted backhand at his arm. I felt almost drunk with it. I blinked my eyes several times before the real world came back into focus. “I need a drink before I do another one like that.”
“A stiff one?” Dom chided, his eyes suggestive.
“Ugh.” I took my scrolls and shoved away from the table with a playful wink back at him. “Don’t be gross.”
I did have to leave them. I didn’t want to be where they could see me so weak. It was like I’d done more than just learn the spell. I half-stumbled down the narrow stairway, slumping down on the bottom step. I’d chosen the Lesser Glamour spell first. I’d learned it without casting it, but now that I was alone, I cast it to see what it did.
Beauty +1 (temporary)
That is what it did at level one? I remembered an old movie and thought, “Tricky, tricky, tricky…” I sat on the bottom step and cast the spell again. It was a buff like my other one which meant that I couldn’t cast it over and over again on myself. I had to wait for it to wear off.
Figuring that the stairwell was as safe a place as any, I learned the next scroll the same way I’d learned the previous one. Again, I felt drunk, but knowing it was coming, I was ready for it. I now had the Lesser Disguise spell in my spell book, but again, I felt some understanding of the spell that I didn’t have for most of my other spells. I felt this way about my Spark and Poison spells, and maybe about the Lift Spirits spell, but not the simpler ones. There was something to it, and my mind would get around to telling me eventually.
Something in me just knew that the spells were different from one another. It was like knowing a person over the internet but never having met them in person. You knew them on the inside, but sometimes they weren’t what you thought they were. I knew these spells from the inside, but I’d yet to see what they could physically do. I learned Shhh, and then went to get that drink.
“Whatcha’ doing?” I found Mabel in the kitchen, and it looked like she was cobbling together something for the evening meal.
“Everything!” grouched a very frazzled Mabel. “I’ve got customers coming and they’re going to want to eat and drink and sleep. It ain't like I got any help until Marlo comes in and all she does is flirt and serve. Who’s going to do the rest? Just leave it all to Mabel, right?”
“I’ve got food for tonight, if you want it,” I broke into her raving, leaning against the door jam. Terra sauntered in around me to root around under the counters for the mice she knew were just waiting for her.
“Good old Mabel’ll do it all,” she sputtered on before she realized what I’d said. “Don’t be teasing old Mabel now!” Mabel wiped her meaty hands on her apron and strode toward me, a mix of threat and desperation in her eyes.
“Like this?” I met her at the kitchen’s center counter, pulling out a cauldron of gnoblin stew and two trays of hand-sized fruit pies. I cast the Lesser Glamour spell on Mabel, but it barely made a difference with her face all red and splotchy from her temper and efforts over the hearth.
“Gods save me, yes!” Mabel gave each an appreciative sniff.
“A silver each,” I stepped between Mabel and the goods. “Dom and I are to be paid for our work.
“A silver for both,” Mabel chewed out, her frugal nature making me roll my eyes.
“Throw in another copper for Terra’s mouse catching service and it’s a deal,” I countered.
“Deal,” she snorted, plopping a silver and a copper onto the counter with glee.
I stuck out my hand and cast a Clean on our general area before her hand hit mine to seal the deal.
“Now, I’ve only got to clean the linens, the stable and still have enough left in me to sling ale tonight,” she grumbled.
“It just so happens, Mabel, that I’ve got a deal for you,” I crossed my arms as she eyed me suspiciously. “You remember Dom, right?”
“Sure,” she agreed, like I was crazy to ask. “Wasn’t that him outside chopping wood this morning that woke me near to dawn?”
“Well, Dom and I are looking to earn a few extra coppers,” I lied. I wanted the professions, not the coppers, but Mabel wasn’t one to understand that. “And it sounds to me like you need a stable hand, maid, and maybe even a butcher if your larder is a little bare.”
“Maybe,” Mabel scoffed, turning away from me. “But I ain't rich enough to hire all them folk. It’s Mabel that does it all, it is.”
“Give me and Dom a copper each and we’ll be your stable hands, maids, and even butcher one of your pigs out there and stuff it in your brine in the pantry,” I offered.
“I told you, I ain't rich enough for all that,” Mabel waved back at me, not even turning to look.
“You could afford it if you made a little extra money on the side, right?” I wiggled the bait and had the satisfaction of seeing her pause.
“Didn’t I already tell ya, I ain't got time for your games. I got work to do,” but she’d turned back to listen to me.
“I’ll pay you four coppers to teach Dom and I how to sling ale and wait tables tonight,” I enticed.
“Four coppers?” and I could see that she was trying to do the math in her head and that it hurt.
“You’ll end up paying us six coppers for all the odd jobs, and we’ll give you back four coppers, and I’ll sweeten the pot by being the bard for the night.” I waited for her to haggle.
“I’ll do my part for six coppers,” she tried, but I could tell she would do it for less.
“Five coppers,” I countered, rapping my knuckles on the counter for emphasis. “And you pay me up front.”
“Done,” she snarled, sticking out her hand. I shook it and snarled back, even though I was smiling inside. If I smiled, she’d feel cheated. Once our hands broke apart, she flipped me a copper and we both let our smiles out.
Notifications flowed out like mana from heaven.
“Hey!” I heard Terra protest in my mind.
“I couldn’t warn you when you weren’t anywhere near me,” Dom said by way of apology in our link. I gave a laugh. “I just wanted to ask why and how I just became a cook, a stable hand, a maid and a butcher? I’m not complaining, mind you, but?”
“Mabel just hired us to do some chores,” I answered with a bigger laugh.
“I’m not a chat program either,” Terra groused. “I almost had that mouse!”
“Meet me in the tavern’s kitchen when you’re done playing with scrolls,” I told Dom, feeling the link start to fade.
“I’m almost done,” Dom said something more, but the link faded.
“I’m sorry, Terra,” I apologized for both of us and summoned her back to the kitchen, much to the chagrin of one very surprised mouse.
I went into the tavern and used my single copper on the ale that might help dull the ache in my head. I sat on the kitchen’s center counter and sipped my ale. Since I couldn’t watch a mirror for the results of either of the other two spells, I cast Shhh over and over again on Terra as she stalked a family of mice.