The moon was high in the sky by the time Amy stumbled out of the inn to get some fresh air, exhausted and half-tipsy. With good food, all it took was one drink to turn a simple dinner into something longer, and before she knew it, it was night time, well after anything she anticipated. Brilliant moonlight illuminated the small street quite well enough so that she didn't even need a lamp to light the way, her destination the very same park she had stopped in the day before.
It didn't take long before she was lounging across one of the park's benches, admiring the stars in the deathly silence of the bright night. I wonder if there's some kind of... alcohol-be-gone Spell? Would be mighty handy right now as I already feel a headache coming on, Amy wondered, taking a moment to scroll through the Arcane Repository on her FPG. Perhaps Detoxify would work? Alcohol's a toxin, right? Tier 3's a bit hard for me right now though. Doubt I could even cast Familiar right now, let alone a Spell I don't know. Hmmm... is there a Fae Bolt on here?
While Amy had never heard of the Element before, unlike Esoteric Illusion, it seemed Fae hadn't been erased from the annals of history, as the Spellform for the Bolt appeared out in front of her. Coalescing and attuning the mana was an easy process for something like Fae, taking barely a few seconds of concentration even in her drunken state to finish her Magecraft, while her personal mana spun itself in front of her arm in the shape of a Bolt, aimed to the sky. The verdant green missile took form swiftly, and as soon as the Fae mana finished circulating the Spellform, the Bolt whizzed off into the sky harmlessly, seeming no different to a Basic Bolt. Maybe I shouldn't test these things in the park though. Who knows what the bolt would do if I do something. Maybe... Hmmm...
Narrowing her eyes at a particularly bright and annoying star in the sky, Amy contemplated deeply the intricacies of the Element she was so familiar and attuned with, ultimately not liking the idea she came up with for what it implied.
Nope, not a single idea of what it can do. Guess I'm drunker than I thought. That or the Element's just stupid. Yeah, that's definitely it.
Turning over onto her side, Amy almost casted the Spell again, aimed at a small bin across the path just to see its effects. Fortunately - and frustratingly - reason won out in the end and she relented to just scrolling through her FPG once more, staving off her boredom. Just another thing to ask Felin then, as I don't feel too right about experimenting on anything in the inn either. Hmm... how many things do I have to wait to ask Felin for again? I swear they keep piling up and I can barely remember them all by now. If only I had the right mind to note them down before, but my notepad's back in the room. Unless there's some sort of note-taking Spell on the Repository?
Amy searched intently for a Spell like it, intrigued by the idea, but ended up finding nothing useful, the closest to her wants being a way to convert a book into a mental construct that she could read just by thinking. Not only was it not at all what she wanted - she needed something she could edit after all - but it was Tier 5, well above both her current and sober casting capabilities. She wanted something small, just a way to jot things down when she needed and have it at hand whenever she wanted. A records of a sort that she always had access to, no matter the circumstance. How about Record? That works. Maybe I could take some of that mechanism from the Tier 5 Spell for this. Perhaps a way to 'absorb' my actual notepad and keep it tucked away in my mind. I wouldn't be able to actually read it of course to keep the Tier down at least. Maybe a way to summon the notepad back in front of me to read like a physical book? That could work.
After tumbling the concept around in her head a little more to round off its edges, Amy's gaze darted over to some discarded paper, littered by the very same bin. It was a hard and strenuous thirty second walk over to it, her body not liking her getting up so quickly with such short notice. Elements. Maybe Book? Could work but it's also constricting. This isn't a book, its a tissue. Do I want to compile a dirty tissue with my notepad later on? No, obviously. Knowledge would make it harder though, it being Advanced. Maybe... I don't actually need either. Fae is about fooling... stuff, right? That's how the book explained it anyway. Maybe a mix of Fae and Mind could make me... hiding the thing somewhere equivalent to me storing it? That could work.
Sharpening her drunken focus, Amy's attention once again turned inwards to her mana pool, sending it swirling and gathering more mana for her to attune. Fae would be the easy half of the working so most of her Magecraft's design turned towards Mind, an Element she had little to no interaction with. In fact, out of all the Element's she'd come across so far, it seemed she would have the hardest with Mind, her Magecraft being strangely incompatible with it. At first she thought she might have to change it completely for this Spell, and hope that whatever it turned into would still apply for Fae, when a bit of inspiration hit her. Mind, the Esoteric version anyway, is all about what you are... so for a dancer, wouldn't that be like her choreography? Maybe not that entirely, but definitely knowing what's next.
And so the dancer at the stage of everything began her dance, aimless and wandering, lumbering through existence with no strong purpose or way. At least, that's how it seemed on the outside. Internally, the dancer was headstrong, dancing exactly how they wanted to. They simply followed the path, the one they always knew. Slowly, but surely, the colour of Pure mana began to be corrupted, transforming into familiar verdant green and something else, an intangible colourless hue that seemed absent and refrained from the world, almost looking above and over it. However, there was a hint of something else alongside it, except it wasn't nearly as strong, as if something else was dragged from the depths of mana along with it. A connotation of something greater, perhaps. Amy ignored it.
Pulling the mana out of her, her mind visualised the Concepts behind the working in her mind, the mana turning those thoughts into reality, fulfilling those ephemeral possibilities. As she slowly reached out and approached the tissue, the attuned mana reached out and enveloped her hand, swirling and shifting. And just as Amy grabbed it, crumpling it into a ball completely hidden by her fist, the working completed and the tissue vanished. At that same instant, Amy became aware of something strange, a slight pressure on her thoughts at the back of her head; a pressure that took the form of that very same tissue, blank and dirty. All it took was a thought, and the same tissue appeared once more in her hand, unclenching to reveal it in front of her. The pressure went, and in its place, the Spell's runes imprinted themselves onto her.
"How... odd," Amy muttered, letting the tissue fall to the ground. The runes don't feel as powerful, weirdly enough. As if they lack a certain presence. If the original Monstrous Visage was Tier 3, then maybe this is Tier 2? Suits me, I suppose.
Amy's attention turned back towards the tissue, she repeated the same motions, recasting the working. Each time she studied how the runes fit together in her head, manifesting in similar and different ways each time as each working slightly differed. The tissue disappeared and fell to the ground countless times over the course of that night, yet not even the dregs of alcohol in her system could deter her from it, no matter how boredom creeped on and on. It was when the moon was a noticeable time past midnight that something clicked within Amy, the runes forming a picture more complete than anything she had with Monstrous Visage. Ah. So this is another way to make a working into a Spell, she realised. I simply have to cast it over and over again... until I know all the runes the Spell could have. All that's left for me to do is fit it all together.
Thoughtlessly, the working sprang up again, only deeper and stronger as something else reinforced it. Not only were the Concepts behind it more complex, but her own innate mana guided it. In front of Amy, the runes appeared, countless taking shape as the drain on her mana pool intensified. Shapes in the runes that were too similar drifted towards each other and overlapped, sections meeting in real time, coming together all at once. In the centre of her hand, reaching out to the same worn tissue, the fully realised Spellform manifested, Fae, Mind, and something other, coursing through its channels.
Then, the Spell casted. Just like each time before, the tissue vanished. Only, this time, there was something different.
And unlike the guesswork she had to work around with Monstrous Visage, this time Amy knew exactly how different the Spell was.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
In becoming a fully realised Spell through this method, Record had truly become the embodiment of its Concepts. No longer was she restricted to merely storing 'paper' within her, conceptualised as akin to a book. Now, it was bound within a true record, a book that she could modify and change.
Flexing a burst of Fae mana, Amy pulled out from under her arm not the tissue but a leather-bound book; the Record. The front and back covers were ornately designed, embossed with flightily and swirling designs, almost embodying the whimsy of the Element she mainly used for the Spell. Although the Record contained many pages - yellow, old and weathered - Amy could only truly access one, flipping without any touch to it. Unlike the other pages, this one seemed dirty and white, stretched out thin to reach the size of the other pages. It was the tissue.
This time, Amy used the Mind side of the Spell, conjuring an intangible ethereal feather quill, ghostly and just as she had imagined it. Grabbing it out of the air, she put the quill to the issue and despite the lack of any ink, the quill imprinted upon the tissue words. In the instant Amy put the point to the tissue, she knew that these letters weren't real. They were only visible from her mind, unable to be read by anyone else who might be peaking in over her shoulder or otherwise.
Of course, if she modified the Spell, she very well could make the Spell write real words, while still retaining the same quirk of privacy. However, that was not what Amy wanted for this Spell. She wanted a way to Record her thoughts and ideas, a diary in a way, and not a real replacement for anything physical. In fact, just as she could sense the exact details of the rest of the Spell, she could sense the boundary the Spell sat between, that of Mageling and Apprentice Spells. Even though the Spell Tiers as Amy knew them didn't exist, she could still sense the boundary between Mage Tiers even in actual Spellwork, the gap in power too noticeable to ignore. And any more power, or Concepts, that would be added to the Spell would mean pushing it over that boundary; from Mageling to Apprentice, and from Tier 2 to Tier 3.
I can see why Felin didn't encourage me to do this with Monstrous Visage though, Amy nodded, stopping her idle scribbling on the Record. This method of repetition is only really applicable for lower Tier Spells. Once you get into the high Tiers, the sheer number of combinations the runes may have would have been staggering. If it took me this long for only a Tier 2 Spell, what then would it have been like for my modified Monstrous Visage at double the Tier? And that's not even considering the gap between Mageling and Apprentice Tier increasing the disparity.
Dispelling the book, Amy let the tissue go, watching it rip from the pages of the Record, fitting back into its normal shape and falling to the ground. Inspecting it, it seemed almost the same as usual, though more worn from her continued abuse of it. On the edges of it though were signs of stretching, the full Spell version of Record seeming to have actual effects. Considering the changes between the working and Spell, it only made sense that it did.
The working's Concepts are enhanced and realised in becoming a Spell with the mana now being able to rely on me as a conduit for the true potential of the Spell, where its possibilities were somewhat stifled beforehand. Really though, it's strange just how much better I understand the whole working process now through this repetition method, Amy frowned. Like, I get why Felin didn't teach me it, he's setting me up for the higher Mage Tiers where this won't be as useful, but not even introducing it to me? That's just a bit odd. Maybe it's simply been so long since he's even used the method, if at all if he was born Ascendant, that he didn't even consider teaching it to me. At least I know it now, and it's definitely taught me a lot about the working to Spell pipeline than before. Just the mere feeling of the runes fitting together and using me as the grindstone to refine itself against, the support to hold up the possibilities of what it could-
Just as Amy was about to fall deeper into her thought-hole, a pain lurched at her stomach. And not all of it was from something not agreeing with her either. I can't tell what part of it is my low mana pool, the drink, or my hunger. Either way it's really digging into me now. Definitely the time to retire to my room then.
Stumbling up to her feet, the aches dug deeper into her as she shambled her way back along the path to the inn, regularly taking breaks along the way to rest on a tree or wall. It was just her luck then that she was only a block or two from the inn that she was interrupted.
"You alright lady?" A voice called out to her from behind, seemingly coming out of nowhere. They snuck up on me.
Turning back wearily, she found the source of the voice to be from a scraggly dressed man in an alley to the side. His face was somewhat gaunt and definitely grubby from dirt and soot. Something pricked a drowsy corner of her strained mind, urging her to pay attention to what the suspicious man was holding, but her tiredness was winning out for now.
"Yes... fine, thanks," Amy gave a put-on smile, narrowing her eyes at the man.
"Sure, lady?" He reiterated, pointing the thing in his hand outwards, emphasising it. "Have any idea how you could help me?"
"Pretty sure you got that the wrong way round," Amy mumbled, perhaps a bit too loudly as the man's posture grew more aggressive.
"Just look, alright" The man sighed, pushing the thing out of the darkness of the alley more, and finally revealing the full thing. It was a knife; because of course it was. "You'll help me out here, alright? Give me your purse or something like that, and I'll help you get on your way back home or whatever."
"Do I have to?" Amy asked groggily.
"W-what?" The mugger, because that was all he could be, muttered confusedly.
"Like I get you got that... thing pointed at me," She groaned, waving around and gesturing to the drawn knife, "But do I really need to?"
"Lady, give me your fucking money or I'll stab you, you dumb bitch," He snarled, his patience beginning to run low.
"Wow, how... scary," Amy said, exaggerating her shock, yet even through her exhausted lenses, her brain was still working overdrive, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Couldn't I just... make him drop it? That could work. Got enough mana left in me for a Spell or two more I reckon. Until the mana sickness hits anyways.
"I swear to-" He started, stepping towards her threateningly. The moment he made that first movement however, mana shot up towards her brain, willing it not to enhance it entirely but merely speed it up. Time seemed to slow imperceptibly at first, but by the time his foot reached stone, everything seemed as if it was run through thick honey. Not quite treacle, not slow enough for that yet, but definitely quick enough to allow her some time to process and to act.
Has to be Command, Amy decided. No other Spell in my arsenal can stop him without resorting to offensive means. Lucky Felin taught me it first then.
By the time mana began drawing towards her the man had managed another step, starting to raise the knife towards her chest. Unsure if he actually meant to stab her or not, the mana stream to her brain intensified to an absurd degree, almost overloading it again like the last time she attempted something like this. Her Magecraft barely began to visualise itself before Amy asserted herself into it as strongly as possible, her will pervasive and overpowering. Her Fae self overrode the tenuous stage and asserted itself onto the coalesced mana, completely dominating it. As it should, Amy added absentmindedly, not entirely sure where the thought even came from.
In a blink, the Pure mana completely vanished into a whirlpool of Fae viridescence, swirling out and towards her face. Her eyes, the windows to her soul, her self, glinted the same shade of green in that moment, the Spellform taking shape in front of her lips. The knife and the mugger were too close for comfort, barely a step away, by the time the Spellform completed. The Command slipped out of her, and the world bent.
"Drop it."
The man's eyes were still solely focused on her when he unconsciously dropped his knife, his grim frown turning even darker once he realised what he had just done. In one smooth, enhanced, movement, Amy's free hand came up and grabbed the knife by the handle as it fell mid-air; a feat she could not even dream of accomplishing without her speedy mind. All returned to normal, unfortunately, her mana easing and plunging her back into the slowness of reality, breathing heavily with beads of sweat running down her forehead.
Flicking it out to the mugger, he could only take a hasty step back, stuck in shock at the Command's remaining influence. Her eyes still flashing green, Amy snarled.
"Slither away little snake, should you value your small life. Or do you so wish to face my knife?"
The man did not wish to face his own knife.
All of his grim bravado, perhaps not born out of foolishness but experience, vanished as he sprinted away not into the darkness of the alley but the bright moonlit street, as far away from Amy as possible. Even when he rounded a corner, Amy still pointed the knife in the direction he went, her body tense.
It was only when the complete silence of the night came once more - besides her own breath - did she relax and let her actual tiredness and sickness come back, the shield of adrenaline falling away. Leaning heavily against the side wall, Amy wore a grim look of frustration as she anguished over her straining mana pool. If Amy was more focused she would have realised it had grown in that moment, the biggest gain she had since her first, as the ascension mana attuned even more to her self.
"I'm too tired for this, damnit," Amy grumbled quietly, turning around, using the wall as a pivot.
Stumbling in the general direction of the inn, Amy muttered complaints under her breath, too quiet to mean anything substantial, other than just outlets for her frustration.
And, in spite of the fact her mind was still dwelling on the mugging attempt, a corner of it couldn't help but cry in dismay. Just how am I going to explain this to Felin?