Magical creatures come in many forms and arose on Kaltis through a variety of means. A magical creature—for the purposes of this manual—is any living creature that innately draws upon a Font to wield magic or was created through the use of magic. Through decades of pestering from my contemporaries, I have finally relented to their arguments to expand my definition to include the animals created by the gods near the end of their time on Kaltis. As such, the creatures I had formerly categorized as beasts are now included.

Lidian’s Manual to Magical Fauna, 283rd ed

—

Kole blinked, and he was no longer in the cave, but back in the ready room.

“Gravel munching ditch diggers!” Rakin shouted in what context—and Kole’s brief experience with the angry dwarf—suggested was almost certainly a curse.

Zale, who looked disoriented but otherwise unharmed, let the curse slide without reprimand. Rakin however was covered in cuts and had a pretty bad arrow wound in his leg, sans arrow.

“What happened?” Zale asked the others.

They updated her on the events that followed the trap.

“You just surrendered?” Rakin shouted, outraged.

“What was I supposed to do?” Kole defended, “Let them stab me?”

“Yes!”

“Don’t listen to him,” Zale said, “He’s just a grouch. He’s mad he got beaten by some goblins.”

“Bah! You did too!”

“Nope. I got crushed by a trap.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Kole suggested, not sure of the dynamic between the two, but hoping to head off any possible conflict. Zale seemed incapable of anger, but Rakin could muster up enough for two.

“Good idea. I’m starving.”

“Wait!” Kole yelled, “the rod!”

He’d lost track of it when he’d run out of Will. He felt his belt and pockets but didn’t find it.

Will I need to pay for it? He wondered, terrified at what the consequences would be, for he couldn’t hope to afford to replace it.

“Don’t worry,” Zale said, walking over to a box in the corner. She opened it up and inside was the blasting rod and Kole’s light orb.

“Thank the gods,” Kole said.

“Even if you’d broken it, you wouldn’t have had to pay for it,” Zale explained.

Kole gathered his orb and rod, and they left the room. Outside Underbrook greeted them outside and led them to a room on the side.

“We won’t do a full debrief today,” He explained. “But, if you walk through those doors, you can get cleaned up. In the future, we will have class after each run, but it’s best you have some time to digest your experience. Violence isn’t for everyone, and the first exposure to it can be traumatic. Enjoy your evening, and reach out through the week if you find you need help processing what occurred.”

* * *

“There you are!” Amara’s voice shouted from behind Kole as he ate with Zale and Rakin.

He greeted her and Zale introduced her to her ’cousin.’

“Cousin?” Amara asked, “How?”

Zale sighed.

“I have a lot of uncles and aunts, none of whom are related to me by blood.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“So, why were you looking for me?” Kole asked Amara after she’d joined them. “We were going to meet tomorrow for Zale’s ’uncle’s’ class right?”

“Oh yeah!” Amara said, pulling her tracker out of her pocket, excited now that the topic was runes. “This was on my desk, and it started spinning. I thought it was broken, but I made a new one and transferred the stone and it did the same thing.”

“Oh,” Kole said, “We were in the dungeon in the adventuring room for a few minutes. It’s probably that.”

Amara shook her head.

“No, it was spinning for at least an hour. I came here as soon as it stopped.”

Zale jumped in, “That's probably related to the Dahn. Tracking spells have… difficulties finding the paths to people within it.”

They described the events of the dungeon, and Amara was enthralled—though not by the parts that the other three thought were exciting.

She asked endless questions about the function of the dungeon itself—questions none of the trio knew, and eventually, she gave up, resigning herself to asking her mentor about it.

“Any ideas on how we can do better next time?” Kole asked, “Aside from looking for traps that is.”

Rakin and Zale had been a little down since their exit. Kole sensed that both had thought they’d perform better than they had, and they were processing their failure. Kole hadn’t had any expectations and was largely okay with their failure. He’d come here to learn, after all, he knew where his skills lay, and combat wasn’t one of them—yet.

“You need to bring a weapon,” Zale said, pointing at him.

“Rakin doesn’t have one,” Kole said defensively out of reflex, though he agreed with the sentiment.

“Rakin is a weapon,” Zale said, causing the dwarf to smile smugly. “He trains with the Monk Order of the Resounding Silence.”

Kole was impressed, and it explained his prowess in hand-to-hand combat and confidence in walking into the dungeon unarmed. Even Kole, the isolated recluse that he was, knew of the Order. The monks had long ago found a way to use their own Will to harness the energy that Assuine left in her creations. Normally, this power can only be drawn upon by her Blessed, but the monks learned that they could use the energy in their own bodies to reinforce themselves.

After giving Rakin ample time to dig a hole with his smile she added, “My aunt sent him there to work on his anger issues.”

The smile vanished, replaced with a scowl.

“Can I bring one from class?” Kole asked. “I don’t have the money to buy one.”

Zale thought it over.

“I can lend you one of mine but what we really need to do is get you a blasting rod. The budget for the class is meant to allow us to switch out gear and weapons to suit each dungeon, and using it all on that rod is going to harm us. If we can get one for you somehow, you could get a weapon from class.”

“That doesn’t help,” Kole said. “I can’t afford a quarterstaff. How am I going to buy a blasting rod?”

“I could make you one,” Amara volunteered, causing everyone to turn to her. “Um, what did I say?”

“How would you afford the materials?” Kole asked.

“Oh, that,” she replied, unconcerned. “If my idea pans out, I could make one out of mundane materials, but I'd need two gems. My idea involves using organic materials, not the alchemically enhanced ones normally used for the rods.”

“Two gems? Why? That's more expensive not less."

"The regenerative runes I have in mine need a dedicated gem to store the pattern of the blasting rune," Amara explained. “The overall cost would actually be lower than one gem and magical materials.”

"Why do you even need gems?" Kole asked, frustrated.

"The gems store the Will while intent altering runes mold it into the form required to power the runes."

"Oh, kind of like a mental vault holds spell construct template," Kole said, connecting the unknown magical field to one he knew deeply.

"Exactly like that," Amara agreed.

"Why can't I just store the pattern in my vault?"

It seemed too obvious to Kole now that he'd connected the two, but there had to be a reason it wasn't done. He knew little of runes, aside from the extreme basics. Like the spellforms he studied daily, runes were ineffable patterns that resonated and stored Will of certain intent. The Will within runes was shaped in the same way spells were. If spellforms and runes were both languages, they both at least used the same alphabet. While Kole couldn’t create or decipher any runes, if given a reference, he’d have little trouble copying it.

"You could do that, some master runesmiths do, but then why use a rod at all? Aside from a master runesmith, only a wizard would have the skill to shape the Will, and it would take valuable vault space the wizard would be better used to store a spell. You’d need to focus to channel it in combat—which is difficult. It removes all the benefits of a blasting rod. You might as well cast the spell."

Kole began to get excited, and he saw in her face when Amara connected the dots.

"You can't cast spells!" Amara blurted out.

"Yeah..." Kole agreed, with a mix of excitement and embarrassment. "How can I learn the pattern intent?"

"The school has a library of them!" Amara shouted, with the enthusiasm she only displayed when talking about runes. "You could come by and copy them into your vault! What Font should we choose? Force? Fire? Lightning? What could get you through the dungeon? Some of the patterns—“

“Amara,” Zale interrupted diplomatically, forestalling an incoming lecture. “Why don’t you get something to eat and join us.”

Amara looked around as if only then noticing where she was.

“Okay, I’ll be right back. Then I can tell you about the regenerative internal matrix.”

Then, she hurried off to gather food, excited to return and share her plans.

“So” Rakin began. “Are we going to leave before she comes—OW!”

Zale struck him on the back of the head before he could finish the sentence.