“ARISE!” Glarith commanded the bones, and the cleaned skeleton – clean besides its lower parts submerged in the Jorteg-soup – started to stir.
Gradually, its hands and head began to come to life, its skull ever so carefully beginning to rotate, while its hands began to roam about its length, trying to figure itself out. It looked confused down there in the pile of itself, like someone who’d just woken up to find themselves in a strange new body.
Eventually, the rest of the creature stirred. Legbones began moving, skeletal arms began reaching for ground, and spine and ribcage – the torso – twisted free of the mess of its heap. Following a few contortions, one bony knee shot up in the air, before planting its foot firmly on the ground.
“Bony Love!” The wizard’s spell sprang to life from his fingertips. It wasn’t the same exact spell that he’d cast once weeks ago, rather, the wizard had chosen to amend that previous spell so that he could, merge in one more mana ghost, supplementing the ghosts of the wild gnomes from which the spell had first been made.
The magic spell hit the bone creature like a whirlwind of variably shaded blue and purple, all of it taking on the illusion of translucent matter dancing, whirling, curling about the form. Thin sheets of magic pretending solidity, wrapped itself about the newly made being, as it first descended upon the creature, infiltrating its every bone, before, passing a moment of rising intensity, a shift of currents suddenly took place, and descension spun towards ascension, a rush to climb, up, up along the skeletal body, all the way to top, where magic melded with bone, and all of it, all the solid lights, inserted themselves firmly inside the skull.
A last flicker of blue light there inside, and then, the room became an ubiquitous silence. The skeleton did not move. Not for a long time. Meanwhile, every mage in the kitchen, including Amez, and Darmon with his arm around his witch, all stared. Each and every pair of eyes waiting. Waiting to see what would happen next.
Clack-clack-clack!
The jaw of the skeleton produced a momentary beat, and then its skull turned, rotating about its position, looking around at the people staring back at it everywhere. It looked down at itself, and then down at the floor, where lay the staff. As if by instinct, the skeleton grabbed the staff and placed its bottom end firmly against the ground. It leaned on the upright wood, pushing itself to its feet.
Clack-clack-clack!
There was that spasmic rhythm of its jaw again, the skeleton’s gaze met by nothing but silence from everyone. Some faces revealed an emerging amazement at the promise of a skeleton like no other in front of them. In other faces, there was a detached sort of interest, the kind made by people who’ve seen a thousand skeletons rise in their time. Yet in other faces in turn, a blank expectation remained, a thought that perhaps something more was going to happen, that the show wasn’t quite over.
Rum strode forward, ahead of Glarith who’d been standing a mere foot closer than him. The wizard stretched out his left hand towards the skeleton’s left – the skeleton’s right hand of course being occupied holding the staff.
“Hi there” he said. “May I welcome you into our world?” The skeleton tilted its head to the side, as if trying to figure out Rum’s gesture, or perhaps, though it shouldn’t really work like this, but perhaps, Rum thought, ze is trying to remember me from zes past life – as him – as Jorteg?
But the skeleton simply responded by mimicking Rum’s gesture, holding its own left hand out with an open set of fingerbones. Rum gently grabbed the hand, holding it for a couple of seconds, smiling and forming eye-contact with the new creature, before letting go. Then he stood aside, and looking at Glarith, gestured for her to step forward; to claim her baby.
As Glarith did, Rum spoke quietly. “Ze’s going to need a name.”
Glarith stopped, turning her head to Rum in confusion. “Ze?”
“Yes” Rum responded. “A skeleton, with its synthetic mind and post-living fleshless body, is beyond gender. I find it that ze, the pronoun of the genderless among the gods, is a fitting replacement. And this one” his eyes darted, “ze is going to need a name.”
Glarith held Rum’s gaze for brief thinking moment, before looking back to the being in front of her, whose identity was neither new, nor old, nor even strictly in-between – but synthetic.
“Staffy” Glarith said, as her eyes fell upon the staff the skeleton was holding, and her mouth curved up into a funny smile.
“HAH!” Darmon bursted out, “STAFFY!” And so the whole wide room suddenly burst out into laughters, chuckles, and broad smiles everywhere.
Soren, Rum’s new apprentice, slammed his knee as he bent over laughing. “Staffy! Staffy!”
The kitchen continued roaring for some time, with joyous talks erupting everywhere, and Glarith inspecting her new baby. Though, after the some-time had passed, which turned out to be quite a long minute, another new apprentice of Rum, the witch Bun, came over and tugged gently at the wizard’s robes. Rum spun around. His eyes finding the woman, he looked at her, expectant.
“It’s your friend” she said, gesturing in the general direction of the other side of kitchen. When Rum looked and couldn’t see anyone he’d easily register as belonging particularly within that category of friend, he looked back down at her. But before he could ask for clarification, her tug became much stronger, and the woman pulled him by the sleeve of his robe over, dragging him along. They walked a few steps, at the end rounding one of the kitchen counter corners. There, following Bun’s outstretched finger, Rum saw down at long counter’s end a small, naked woman, and two fiercely red buttcheeks. The latter two immediately fixed Rum’s eyes, as both buttcheeks seemed to almost stare right back up at him with just how intensely red their colorations were.
“Ah” Rum said. “Good” he glanced down at Bun, “thank you for bringing my attention to her.” The wizard left Bun to step over to his recent savior: the woman who’d defied her own fears to save him at the last moment, only a little less than an hour ago.
Standing next to the unconscious woman’s body, Rum kneeled down to Elrith’s head. Leaning in, he touched her peaceful cheek, curiously finding no wounds on her face, despite the stains of dry blood reaching from her forehead. “You look to be much better than I’d thought” he whispered, before adding “Trinity of Healing.” The green magic rushed from his fingers, spreading out across the woman’s body at speeds as it sought out each and every corner, chasing any remaining injuries. Having reached its maximum extent, the green magic seemed to bounce back across the body, converging upon the woman’s head, and the source of her unconscious state.
“Aaah” Elrith moaned softly, as a pained grimace briefly came, and then rapidly departed across her face.
“I’m now going to give you some clothes” he proceeded to explain, despite her eyes-closed, open-mouthed, and obviously comatized expression. “I imagine you would prefer that. You can always strip down later, if you’d rather stay like this.” He gestured towards her body as if she could equally see and hear him, though really he was just speaking his thoughts out loud. It was better to voice them out sometimes he’d long ago figured out. To pretend that he had an audience. After all, if he did that, he could listen and judge his own words in the role of his audience. For when later an audience of others should occur, he may thus be prepared. Should any predictable objections be discovered this way while he talked to himself, he may figoure out a preemptive response, like a reasonable explanation, or a way to escape violent anger. It did occur a little too often that he had to do both.
Rum’s hand moved from Elrith’s face and down over her body, landing at a spot where the tiniest of fragments still remained from her former clothes. “Renew Clothes” he uttered in another whisper, and over the course of a few seconds, magic wrapped Elrith’s body up in a fresh new attire, not all too dissimilar of her previous one. A black leather vest around her torso and breasts. A shirt beneath the vest, and some dark woolen pants with a skirt of wide, thick leather plates covering her from above the knee and up, an effective protection against low blows. There’d been a few items on her body that hadn’t been consumed by the fire, and somehow the spell knew exactly how to refit all of these across her too, giving her side a hip-attached leather quiver of bolts, her belt a tied knife for emergency stabbings, and a couple of thick glass flasks with unknown contents, also attached to her belt. The bolts had been repaired by the spell, the knife and the flasks cleaned from soot and minor fire damage to the hilt and the cork, but otherwise none of these items had been conjured themselves by the spell. The spell had conjured a handkerchief sticking out of her chest-pocket though. However as Rum noticed it, analyzing her redressed body, he thought he remembered that she’d had one of those before too. It’s almost like the spell can remember every little detail, even when I can’t?
Rum finally stood up and took one last glance at the woman. “You’ll be fine” he nodded to himself, and went to rejoin the others. It was at that point among the rest of the mages, that he heard a few from the crowd had gone to look at Jorteg’s laboratory and treasures.
“I too want to have a look” Darmon said, stating exactly what was on Rum’s mind as he heard this. So the couple of human males, along with Darmon’s witch friend, and all of Rum’s new apprentices, set out to see Jorteg’s laboratory and treasures.
Walking through tunnels, round corners, into new tunnels, and up stairways, they finally came upon a large underground complex, with doors of iron and wood to the sides presumably leading into other attached rooms, and stairs in the background leading up.
“The laboratory has 4 floors” said Bresh, the witch who, much like Veish, had come to The Desolate Lands for magic, after living among the Tumi goblins in their kitchen-villages. “There’s a stairway beyond the 4th floor, but it leads to a cave at the top of the mountain. Jorteg used to go there to trek down into The Desolate Lands. We have a couple of nearby goblin camps there he used to trade with. There’s also a necromancer’s mansion there, and at least one human farm that have supplied us with food. A few times he also journeyed to Mane and Nara to shop.”
The room they’d first entered, as Bresh spoke, was a large one with a low ceiling but several rows of books. There were a few desks nearby as well, with books spread out everywhere. Ink, feather pens, pencils, sheets of blank paper, sheets with notes on them, and what looked like a finely bound diary book, all lay on top. Jorteg, Rum humorously observed, had worked like a team of researchers. Actually, when I think about it, doesn’t that mean his apprentices likely helped?
“Did you do research here as well?” Rum voiced out loud as their small flock, lead by Bresh, passed by a row of books and started heading for a closed iron door.
“I didn’t” Bresh immediately answered, “but Glarith and a couple of the other wizards did.”
“I helped a few times” admitted Larkoff. “But I don’t think Bresh is thinking of me. Some of the other wizards are much higher level than I. Jorteg only used to ask me for chores, like sorting his books back.” As they stopped outside the iron door, he quickly gestured to the shelves of book just behind them. “What you see there, that’s partially my doing. Jorteg couldn’t for the life of him do anything simple himself. The lord always had to work on the big complex stuff himself, but never could he do any of the boring simple labor.”
“Hah, true!” Bun said. “If we didn’t make his sandwiches, he’d either torture us into making them for him, or he’d starve himself on a books-only diet.”
“So he was heavily into books then? He was a big reader?” Rum asked conversationally.
“Soooo into books” Bresh responded, as she grabbed the handle at the iron door.
“You know” said Bun, “I think our dungeon lord really just had the biggest inferiority complex. You know” she turned to Rum, “Jorteg was kind-of a weak dungeon lord. And I don’t mean that because you beat him!” she hastily added. “I just mean, that he wasn’t that famous or high level. Someone mentioned to me not long ago that Jorteg was maybe only level 140, and that’s like really low among dungeon lords.”
Bresh lowered the handle on the iron door and opened up into a large and tall chamber. As they entered it, the first things that struck Rum inside this room were the cheap-looking iron breastplates, resting atop iron poles at the various ends and corners all over the expansive room.
“Practice targets” Rum mumbled to himself, and noticed that next to the breastplates, a few iron plates were fused to the ends of other iron poles. They must be for more rudimentary targeting. Letting his gaze wander, Rum’s eyes were struck by something much more interesting though at the opposite end of the room. There, along the room’s length, was a quite interesting-looking obstacle course, complete with magically hovering practice targets along a series of obstacles for jumping, dodging, and swinging, and all manners of combat acrobatics, some of which Rum didn’t even immediately understand. Along that side of the room, and as part of the obstacles, were stone brick walls with holes just big enough that one could make it through with low dive, while other brick walls stood just high enough that an adult may jump over it in a hurry. Rum saw unsharpened spears sticking out from planks attached to a large mechanical device that he assumed would strike at the person diving through the whole whenever they landed on a trap plank at the other side, because the plank looked to be connected to the mechanical device. As Rum really took it all in, there were many such fascinating steps to the course. Some steps were optimized challenges for survival, while others stress-tested the striking ability of the person. Altogether, the course looked thoroughly complicated to master, and obviously a lot of work and resources had been invested in its intriguing design.
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“Now that you mention it” Bresh said, standing with them inside the big room and breaking Rum’s observational train of thoughts, “do you remember that time Jorteg got that witch to come and visit our dungeon? Wasn’t that Lord Shaarey? Oh, our dungeon lord was so nervous when that day came, he would’ve almost been cute if he hadn’t bossed us all around like an absolute tyrant. He was so concerned that we’d have to look our utmost best.”
“Heh, yeah, I remember that day” Bun responded. “Dungeon Lord Shaarey, Lord of The Great System, coming to visit our little dungeon. What an occasion that was.”
“We’re not that small” Larkoff objected.
“Yeah, that’s what she said” Bresh concurred, before adding, “when Lord Shaarey came, the dwarf said we have such grand amounts of space for an upstart dungeon – a grand amount of nothing – I believe that was close enough to her words. Remember Jorteg’s face when she remarked how empty our dungeon was?”
“Heh” Bun sounded, “that’s true. Jorteg was so embarrassed by her remarks he sulked for 3 days after that visit.”
“Wasn’t that when we started to acquire lots of things and hire a dozen more apprentices?” Bresh gave the impression of recollecting hard.
“Ah, come now witches” Larkoff cut them off, “I know our lord had, by most standards, pretty much a giant pile of excrement for personality, but do we really have to stomp on the man’s grave so soon?”
“But Larkoff” replied Bresh, “we didn’t burry the man!”
“Precisely” Larkoff retorted, “he isn’t even in a grave yet, and we’re all going to spend our time laughing at his lowest moments?”
“He’s dead, or sort-of” Bresh brushed the rhetorical question aside. “He can’t complain, and he can’t be offended. Anyways, this” she gestured to the wide expanse around them, “is where Jorteg and some of us practiced the big spells, and combat of course.”
Rum studied the surroundings some more. He noticed black-sooted mountain walls in places, and partially melted iron plates in others, with splintered pieces of blackened wood and what may have been flakes of obliterated iron behind the targets, as well as in corners, all heaped together in piles of refuse.
“Seen enough?” Bresh said, and before Rum could answer she stepped passed him and back into the room with books, desks, and the low-ceiling. In a corner inside there was a curved staircase, and the witch immediately led them all towards it.
Stepping upon the first stair, they all began climbing to the second floor, where Rum was soon surprised to find familiar faces. Peeking over the next floor, he saw his brother, hunched over one of the wizards, and with a trio of two witches and another wizard watching him work. As their flock all stepped up to see better and stand in the room proper, Rum could see Amez was doing something to the wizard. His eyes glancing passed a myriad of desks, work tables, dressers, and chests of drawers scattered all over the center and to sides of the room, and being briefly distracted by a large mirror to the side, Rum eventually fell upon a small, coppery item in his brother’s hands. The big brother took a few small steps in their direction, rounding a chest of drawers, and taking in the sight of the other wizard, sitting in a large adorned cushioned chair, while he his little brother sat on a stool, the item in his hand being some kind of mechanical, pen-like device.
“Ah!” he let out, and murmured to himself. “A tattoo needle. But, is it–” he rounded another chest of drawers, as well as a desk, and stepped around a large central table cluttered with papers, “–is it moving by itself?”
Now that Rum had gotten a closer look at it, he couldn’t take his curious eyes off it. Indeed, as if by magic, when his little brother moved it horizontally across the man’s skin, the device seemed stab and penetrate the skin all by itself, injecting ink below the outer layer, before receeding back to the surface. When Rum got even closer, he couldn’t see any inkwells nearby, not a single source of ink. “Is it magically refilled?” he asked. His little brother only then seemed to stir and notice his big brother, when he’d come to be only about a meter and a half away. Amez leaned up to straighten his back, and met Rum’s fascinated expression with a slightly tired one.
“Come again?” the younger asked.
“Does it magically refill itself? I can’t see any ink anywhere?” and Rum made a show of glancing about for evidence of ink.
Amez’ face grew a smile, a broad one. “Yes” he said, looking down at the thing in his hand, “it’s incredible. They say it’s a dwarven artifact. Well, if I could have this for my piece of the dungeon’s treasure, I think I would be quite fine. This” his eyes fixed back on Rum’s, and he held the thing up before them both, “is the only thing I want.”
“You shall have it” Rum replied, “I’ll make sure of it. After all, it only makes sense, a tattoo needle for the tattoo artist.” Amez’ smile became thankful as his face lingered on Rum’s, and then he returned to his work, hunching over the arm and the beginnings of a tattoo that Rum thought vaguely looked like a cloud speeding by. “Isn’t that what I saw you make the other day? What did you call it then?”
“Storm Summons” Amez said, “but this will be a smaller version, it’s more like a Lesser Storm Summons.” Amez glanced up into the eyes of the wizard he was tattooing. “We call it lesser when it’s below the regular size, because it won’t have as big effect as the full version.” He glanced down again, resuming his work, but continued talking. “A full version would cover most of your back, and that’s what I’m making for the guy Rum is talking about. He would be able to summon a real and powerful storm, although it’d take him a month to recharge the enchantment. This one’ll only take a little less than a week to recharge. However, your storm will only last about 5 or 7 minutes, and it won’t tip over any cows.”
“That’s fine” said the wizard in his cushioned seat, trying not to grimace too hard at the pains of the dwarven device repeatedly stabbing his skin. “I don’t plan to tip over any cows. I’m just happy to get anything at all useful.”
“It’ll be useful alright, as long as you’re outdoors and there’s few civilians.” Amez stopped to take in a breath, straighten his back again, and then breath out like sigh of strain. He leaned back in. “Storm Summons directs the storm the way you want it, so it’ll go around your allies, that’s what’s most useful about it. It’s a storm only for the other guy.” He flashed a glance and a smile at the wizard. “One of my clients tried it out on his friends, and they said that moving against the wind was like trying to swim against a strong current. Now yours won’t be quite that strong, but it’ll do enough.”
Rum felt a tug at his robes. He turned around to see Bun look up at him. She immediately gestured to the next set of stairs before Rum could ask what she wanted. “The third floor is an artifact storage. We have another, different treasury for gold and rare goods we don’t plan to use ourselves, but Soren says you will likely want to take a look at some of the artifacts upstairs.”
“He says that now, does he?” Rum looked up to see Soren standing and looking at them near the stairway to the next floor. Soren from Crabwalker Port, the sailor who abandoned a life at sea for magic on land, looked ready and ever so slightly eager to go.
Rum took a step in their direction, and followed after Bun to the stairs, where he changed on to follow Soren up and towards a dark room above. Before this moment, magical lights commanded by the mages of the dungeon had illuminated the hallways and rooms upon their arrival, but in this room, they were met by utter and total darkness.
“Fri Gvei” Soren uttered, and a ball of warm yellow light appeared from the tip of his wand. The ball floated into the room, ascending to the ceiling where it cast a broad illumination across. As Rum ascended the last steps of the stairs, he noticed that this room was the most orderly arranged he’d yet seen in this dungeon. Every item, small or large, was organized along walls and on shelves, with each item granted sufficient space at its place to properly stand out, and beckon the viewer to come close and study it.
“That’s a lot of artifacts” Rum spoke in a low tone, taking in the scene of weapons, clothing items, armor pieces, flasks of what must be rare potions, jewelry, books, scrolls, various devices, tools, and pouches containing who-knows-what. “I must admit that I don’t know much about artifacts, that is one of my weak spots in magic I’m afraid” he said, as his eyes wandered with rare amazement.
“Not to worry” said Soren, “I think I know something that might interest you” and he waved a hand for Rum to follow.
They went across to the other end of the room, passing by swords, and gauntlets, and rings – so many rings, Rum noted. When they came to a stop, they stood in front of a stack of wide shelves, and Soren bent down to almost near the floor, before he picked something small up. When he rose back up and turned, he held a small and insignificant looking thing in his hands. A thin bracelet it was, made from intertwined light-brown wood, and cotton flaps hanging on either side. The flaps colored light-brown and with spots of white at the ends. As Soren rotated the simple thing in his hands, turning it apparently upside down so that the flaps hung inside out, Rum saw that the bracelet wasn’t connected at the bottom, but had a little opening so as to make it easier to equip.
“What is that?” Rum asked, more curious at its unconventional design than anything else. It looks almost like a small child could’ve made it. What is this doing in here among swords and diamonds?
“This – is The Puppy-Sleep Bracelet” Soren responded, and smiled. A thin, blond moustache on Soren’s face properly broadened and flattened, as his cheeks stretched to either side with his smiling.
“The Puppy-Sleep Bracelet?” Rum echoed. “Alright, you have me curious Soren. What does it do? And why that name?”
“This, my teacher, is the most powerful protection you can carry when you wish to sleep among hostiles.” He rotated the item in his hands until it was the right-side up again, the flaps now appearing to Rum like a mimicry of dog’s ears. “If you wear this, and then go to sleep, it will metamorphize you into a puppy in your sleep. But!” He raised a finger. “You’ll be no ordinary puppy, teacher – you’ll be a magic puppy. You’ll be the absolutely most adorable puppy in this whole world. The Puppy-Sleep Bracelet, it’ll quite literally make you unharmable. No creature with a mind of its own will be able to attack you, you will simply be too adorable, too much of a heartstopper for anyone who sees you. You’ll be so sweet even the cruelest mind will fall before you, and love the sight of you.” Soren stroked one of the ear flaps with his thumb absentmindedly. “Your enemies may want to pet you in your sleep, but it doesn’t matter, because you will sleep so deeply and so peacefully you won’t know it’s happening. And when, at last, your sleep is at an end, you will indeed wake up as a puppy, but, you’ll also wake up with the greatest urge to bark – at anything. And, it is the spot you choose to bark at, there is where you will transform back into yourself. You’ll never stay conscious as a puppy for long. Only in your sleep. Trust me I know, I was the test subject to find out how this thing worked.” His smile turned a little reminescent. “It quite embarrased our former dungeon lord when he couldn’t as much as pinch a single hair off my body. The other witches even say they spied him petting me.”
Rum stroked his beard looking down at the bracelet with a rare bit of wonder. What an utterly incredible object, he thought. So super, super useful. And so much... me? His apprentice reached out with the bracelet towards Rum, and the teacher’s hand left his beard to grab it. Like Soren, he absentmindedly stroked the pretend dog-ears, feeling that particular softness against his thumb, and sensing the enchantment and magic inside.
“You can put it on” Soren said, “the enchantment only becomes active when you’re asleep. So it won’t matter if you wear it all the time.”
Rum met eyes with Soren, taking in the suggestion briefly, before his eyes came back down to the bracelet. He decided to trust Soren and put his fingers and hand together to squeeze them all through the bracelet. The bracelet magically expanded ever so slightly to let him through, and when it was safely around just above his right wrist, the bracelet contracted, fitting perfectly.
“It’ll be interesting to try this” he thought out loud.
“If you turn into an adorable puppy” Bresh spoke up beside him, “I will want to pet you, just as you know.” She produced a little smile.
Rum gave her a sidelong glance of amusement. “Permission granted” he replied, and returned back to admire the bracelet a few seconds more.
“Haha” Darmon momentarily laughed in the back.
“Well, that was one of the artifacts I wanted to show you. Care about seeing the other?”
“Lead on” Rum gestured at the rest of the whole wide room.
Soren led the teacher and his apprentices, along with Darmon and his witch, to a pedestal, upon which was a pillow, with a glass cover all around. As they all stopped next to it, Soren grabbed the lid of the glass cover and removed it, setting the lid aside on a nearby shelf. Inside, on the pillow, was a small corked vial with a dark red, thick mixture. Soren grabbed the vial in his hand, and brought it up for Rum to look at.
“What is this?” Rum said, as Soren offered it to him. He took it and held it in front of himself, studying its color as he awaited the answer.
“This is a Moon-Hailer Potion” Soren said with a hint of reverence.
Rum shook his head with a grimace. “Never heard of it.”
“Understandable” Soren said, “not many have. I certainly wouldn’t have known if Jorteg hadn’t boasted about it in our presence.” Soren sighed, as if remembering something. “I think this potion, more than anything else, cheered him up after Lord Shaarey’s visit. He was quite proud of acquiring it. Apparently he’d gotten it as a reward from the only apprentice of someone called The Scriptlord, after completing a quest for the mage.”
“And it does?” Rum raised an eyebrow.
Soren smiled again, a different smile this time, a sort-of I-have-a-juicy-secret-to-tell kind of smile. “It...” he begun, before taking a dramatic pause with his sly smile, “... let’s you talk to a god.”
The room fell silent. Both of Rum’s eyebrows went up with some surprise, while the mouths of his entourage all gaped open, all except Larkoff. As Rum glanced and caught Larkoff’s unimpressed face, he thought that maybe the man already knew about the item. Rum returned to look at Soren.
“It’s not just any god though” the man continued, and at the end of his words his blond moustache flattened again in a smile, “of course, it’s named a Moon-Hailer, so the god you can speak to: is Trivili.”
“Trivili” Rum echoed, and his eyebrows lowered. “I’ve always wanted to talk to the gods” he added in a suddenly casual tone.
“Oh?” It was time for Soren to raise an eyebrow now. “What would you want to say to them?”
“Just ask them a few questions.” Rum continued casually. “Like why they grossly oversimplified magic so much. Why they added so much nonsense to the invocations of magic. But most of all what really bothers me, is that they never bothered to tell us how they did all of it, you know?” He gestured vaguely to anywhere and everywhere. “How they made all these spells and enchantments. It would’ve been nice with some guidebooks for the design of everything – especially the big things, like magic of the world, the things that make your spells do stuff. But they didn’t write anything down, they left no instruction manuals on how to tinker with the world, or how all of it works. So now we’re stuck with their nonsense, with all these silly mistakes. The gods, each one, they all left us an annoying damned mess of a magic system, and if I could talk to them, I’d want to ask them why, and maybe if they could be so kind and write the manual of everything down, after I give’em a detailed list of their laps of judgement. I mean, with things like the fundamental construction of the magic of the world, a manual is better late than never.”
Rum pocketed the Moon-Hailer Potion.