My experience had at some point increased to forty-three. That was four Traits or spells I could purchase, or two Attribute upgrades, or a combination thereof. I also had four new spells available. The first among them was Zacharimancer’s Legerdemain which augmented the already enticing spell to allow me to cook and combine ingredients with magic instead of actual time and effort. Then there was Pantries of Astonia (which dyslexia caused me to blush and double-take at after first glance) which gave me instant access to vast ingredient stories across the country. Two augments, Liquid Larder and Meat Market, gave me even greater access, though the first spell mentioned requiring an official license I currently did not possess. I made a mental note of asking the next spellcaster I saw how one might procure such a license, though figuring out who among the folks we were traveling alongside packed any magical potency was more difficult than you might think. It also required me to walk up to a complete stranger and strike up a conversation with them, so it probably wasn’t going to actually happen, ever. Regardless, Legerdemain was the logical choice for a spell, if not the most immediately useful, since it was a stepping stone into zacharimancy and having instantly-cooked food on hand seemed a sound practical choice for the extended journey into the wilderness. Hopefully I could find time to swallow my nerves and see about a license before we left Triangle Road.
Of course, spells weren’t the only thing available to me; several times over the next few days I spent walking around the tent with Arcane Sight, sometimes even beyond its walls and into the snow to read the hologram-like directory of Traits that extended before me. I was grateful that most folks seemed to mind their own business, elsewise a shivering weirdo staring pointedly at the ground while pacing a circle might be greater cause for alarm. There were quite a few attractive options to make me a terror on the battlefield, though the amount of Xp investment to do so was quite high, and I wasn’t sure combat was what I needed to be worrying myself with. There were a few bad Traits with the little skull whose availability for purchase suggested I had innate knowledge of how to effectively wear armor despite having no previous training with it, so perhaps it was a good idea to buy something more substantial to defend myself with. The entire section on skills piqued my interest the most; small situational bonuses to the invisible checks I assumed I was making all the time. I was most interested in Skill Training, which gave me four points to allocate to my skills upon confirming its purchase. I added one to Persuade, making it an even four, and two to Stamina because being more physically durable seemed like a good idea. The last point was a bit more flexible; I didn’t think I needed more Manual Dexterity, though Luck, Focus, and Awareness all seemed like viable choices, but the one that gave me pause was Memory.
My Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder wasn’t diagnosed until later in life. Fairly recently, in fact. But even growing up my ability to retain information that wasn’t whatever my brain deemed immediately interesting was difficult. It kept me from remembering to turn in homework I’d actually finished, caused no end of frustration for my mother when I forgot important chores, and drove my ex nuts when I couldn’t retain information about which of her coworkers was sleeping with which other coworker behind whatever third hapless sap’s back. I doubted dropping a single skill point into it would suddenly make me some kind of information retention machine, but having more of an edge on my own faulty brain was compelling. Allocating the final skill point with a golden sparkle, I wondered how much increasing my skills and Attributes really had an effect on me, personally. Nothing felt like it had fundamentally changed when I upped my Charisma. Perhaps that’s how I so capably navigated the difficult conversation with Tanis, but I didn’t feel like there was any difference in how I felt or acted as a person. If I saved up a bunch of Xp and dumped it all into Strength, would I suddenly hulk up to Schwarzenegger-like proportions, or would it occur gradually over time? Would I even be permitted to do that in the first place? It sounded like an interesting experiment, but not one I was overly committed to exploring.
My final purchase for now came from the ‘miscellaneous’ section; a Trait called Energy Efficient that reduced all quarter Energy and Mana costs to one eighth and would occasionally allow me to perform certain feats at no cost, so long as the situation wasn’t sufficiently dramatic. I’m not sure who was in charge of deciding whether or not things were dramatic, but I assumed it would apply to most non-combat situations at least. This left me with thirteen experience remaining; enough to make an emergency purchase if need be, with a little left over in case I needed to refill my Willpower. Hopefully Energy Efficient would mitigate any need for that, but I preferred to remain prepared. The only thing remaining to do was check out what portions of the Companion Records I was willing to explore. Red’s entry wasn’t much different from the one I had previously seen in the Esper Records in terms of Attributes, skills, and the like. As for Traits, however, he was possessed of a few indications of his influence within the Houses of Flies and Rats, as well as his good fortune and keen ability for investigation and analysis. Tanis, however, had an impressive resume of abilities in her entry.
“What does it say I can do?” Tanis inquired. We were all bedding down for the evening, and I was updating the group on the decisions I’d made and the Companion Records’ contents and how it reflected their real-world abilities.
“You’re athletic and accurate, fast, light on your feet, sneaky, attractive—”
“Flirt,” she accused.
“No, it really does say that.” I pointed it out to her as she read over my shoulder. “It says it about me, too, so don’t take the book as some supreme authority. Comeliness is subjective, after all.”
“Oh, stop it.” She slapped me lightly on the shoulder. “You’re a handsome guy. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“You’re only saying that because the magic book said I was,” I muttered, and she hit me again.
“Be nice to my friend!”
“Mhmm… I’ll try.” I changed the subject by continuing to read. “You’re distracting, opportunistic… you’ve got, like, a dozen Traits here describing how ridiculously good you are with knives.”
“Like what?” She sat down cross-legged next to me, eager and excited.
“Knocking people out with the butt of your weapon, disarming an enemy, causing a bleeding wound that makes them move more slowly, drawing a blade and making an attack before someone can react—I remember you displaying that one.”
“Yeah, I’ve practiced that one a lot.” A broad grin split her face.
“The rest is mostly about how acrobatic you are; good at jumping, climbing, dodging, free-running, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Eh, nuts. I was hoping to find out something I didn’t know I could do.”
“How would the book know you could do something you don’t know how to do?”
“I dunno.” There was a bit of a sheepish expression on her face, and a flush to her cheeks as she stood up. “I’m gonna go hit the hay. Early morning, as usual. Night, guys.” Tanis exited the tent in a controlled, but hasty manner. I didn’t think I’d upset her, and certainly couldn’t fathom how if I did, but it was clear something had.
“Well, she left in a hurry,” Red commented.
“Yeah. I’m not exactly inclined to press about it.”
“Fair enough,” he shrugged. “Anything else interesting about the new stuff in the grimoire?”
“Uhm, yeah, actually. The way you guys’ stuff is laid out… if I’m correct, I think I can buy you Attribute upgrades and new Traits the same way I can for myself.”
“Spells too?” he asked with an arched eyebrow.
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“No, I don’t think so. I get all my spells through the Spell Index, and you guys don’t have one, so unless there’s some other way I’m missing…” I allowed myself to trail off, pouring through the Traits visible to my Arcane Sight to see if I’d somehow missed a ‘can cast spells’ option for either Tanis or Red.
“Eh, just as well. I was never good with magic like other grimalkins. Woulda been neat to see what it’s like, but it’s not a big deal to live without.”
“Do you want me to be buying you more Traits?”
“Uh… I dunno, probably not? I tend to prefer self-improvement the way I’ve been doin’ it for the last two hundred years.”
“You’re two hundred years old!?” I failed to contain the surprise in my voice.
“Eh, one-ninety-eight, but close enough.”
“Jeeze, you really have been around the block.”
“Once or twice,” he chuckled. “Tell you what, you see somethin’ in there you think I might need, lemme know. Otherwise, I’m all set, chief.”
“Sounds good,” I nodded.
Tanis’ answer was much the same when I found time to ask her the next morning, which I could blame neither of them for. With no significant interest in mechanical improvement from either party, there didn’t seem to be much reason to count them as companions in the official sense, but I also couldn’t figure out a way to reverse it. I could access my Contacts and see they were listed there, but there was no way to remove them. The only other potential benefit I had was a Trait appropriately labeled Don’t Die On Me! that described itself as letting me help one of them survive a dire situation by spending a Willpower, which I kept in mind for future purchase. I didn’t know exactly how far that concept stretched, whether I could use it to bring them back from the brink of death or save them from an oncoming danger, or how, but I would be happy to add it to my repertoire if it meant I could avert an unexpected tragedy.
Once I purchased Legerdemain, I started trying to use it in small ways where I could; keeping the lot of us clean on the road, producing sleight of hand tricks without actually being practiced with it, and creating small motes of light that followed us around once the sun went down. Those put some smiles on people’s faces, especially when I started playing around with their colors and intensities. It was a pretty easy spell to keep subtle; it required a flourish of hands, but I could easily conceal it as part of my walk. I’m sure a House agent or some other kind of professional searching for a spellcaster could spot me easily, but my efforts at subterfuge weren’t supposed to be anything more than not drawing attention to myself, just in case. Once I became comfortable using basic functions of the spell, I started trying to stretch them and test their limits, or perhaps my own. With effort, I could make more complex shapes with the lights, including three-dimensional figures. After only a few hours of practice I had managed to construct a tiny effigy of Wysteria in the palm of my hand. She could be moved around as easily as the lights, but it was a static 3-D image sliding about in space. To properly animate he required I dig deep and use all my concentration, and the effort almost immediately gave me a splitting headache.
I could also start fires by making the light warmer, to my absolute fascination. That seemed in excess of what the spell was described as being able to do, but after some testing it fell in line with the ‘non-combat, non-dramatic’ descriptors. I could set a piece of my parchment on fire, for example, and it would burn up the page, but I couldn’t light up an item I hadn’t purchased. I could light a campfire, but if I took one of the bits of wood and tried to set fire to the tent, the flames immediately put themselves out in a cloud of smoke. That particular effect actually felt more useful, since it meant I could keep an absolutely safe campfire inside the tent. After figuring that particular trick out, the nights got a lot less frigid and sleep came much more comfortably. Leaning I could heat the light helped me keep my food and myself warm against the chill, though not enough to, say, survive being lost in the wilderness during a blizzard. Naturally, this was followed by me experimenting to see if I might be able to do the reverse, and while things didn’t freeze solid at my touch, I managed to chill a cup of hot chocolate to an unpleasant tepidness before bringing it back to a drinkable warmth again.
The sleight of hand tricks felt something like telekinesis, with everything ending up dashing to my sleeves or pockets reflexively. It didn’t teleport there; Red caught the movement just by watching closely, which was more than I managed knowing exactly where it was going. I tried to make items go into different receptacles, and so long as they were mine and I was holding them at the time, they were easy enough to stash; I could slip a throwing knife into and out of my bag with ease, or into a cup I was also holding, and so forth. That alone had a number of potential use cases, but curiosity had the better of me. Surely Legerdemain wouldn’t be so powerful that I could accomplish feats that should logically be performed by another, more specific spell? If I could move small objects on my person, could I stitch my own injuries closed with it? If so, why did Healing Touch exist? I wasn’t in a hurry to hurt myself in the name of science (or magic), so I first spent a great deal of time imitating Luke Skywalker and trying to draw distant objects toward me. That did not work, but after a near-accident I discovered a small safety net existed while I had the spell active; I meant to set my open container of teriyaki chicken down on a flat portion of my bag and missed for looking at the book. However, instead of tumbling to the tent floor beneath me, ruining my food, and making a mess, it gently floated to the destination I’d intended and settled safely before my eyes. This prompted another series of experiments, and while I still couldn’t draw a pen to me from across the room, I could if it was just slightly beyond the reach of my fingertips. At a distance, I could hold the tent flap shut against the wind to abate the cold, but Tanis whipped it from my grasp as easily as if there were no magic acting upon it at all.
The final aspect I experimented with was noise. ‘Sounds and soft music’ were described by the Spell Index as possible effects, and with enough focus I was able to throw my voice. I could also produce basically any sound I’d heard before, though the volume was never very loud; it was feasible for me to produce a convincing facsimile of a cardboard box full of loose change hitting the ground at the appropriate volume, but not a vase breaking or a car horn blaring. I wondered if that would change if I cast Proclamation at the same time, or if there were another spell available that mixed the two concepts on its own, fixed to some traditional practice of illusion weaving. Illusionists were very popular in most fiction, after all, though I historically had a hard time making practical use of them within tabletop games. This seemed to extend to the fantastic world that was now my everyday life. Some time after I discovered my new talent, I hid behind a tree and waited for Tanis to pass by, then caused my voice to call after her from the tent. She stopped and looked, opening the flap, but when I wasn’t inside, she turned and spotted me immediately before sticking her tongue out at me. I wasn’t sure if that was a good Awareness roll on her part, some kind of bad deception or magical one or mine, or yet another limitation of the spell, but I made a mental note not to rely on it for any serious application.
Mostly, I was excited to use it for listening to music again. There was music in Babravia, sure; live performances by bards in various inns or buskers on street corners, singing or humming from the folks around us as we traveled, especially Tanis. But the music I’d developed fondness for had support from higher technology, whether that was as simple as the amp of an electric guitar or as complicated as retrowave and industrial songs built entirely by machine. There were strange conditions about what I could or couldn’t produce with Legerdemain, though much like many of the other limits of the spell, it may have also been a result of falling short, personally. I could produce a music track or vocals, but not both at the same time. I couldn’t isolate specific instruments from the rest of a song in most cases, and everything sounded a little… off from the original recording in an inconsistent manner, like I was playing it from memory with expert skill but still making mistakes each time. Sometimes I’d have the artist sing the wrong lyric, immediately realizing it was incorrect after hearing it aloud. It was just a bit of fancy, but it brought a kind of peace and normalcy to being in Barbavia, an ability to bring my favorite songs with me, and share them with the others. While I couldn’t make music and lyrics come together with magic, it was trivial to sing and keep concentration enough for the music to play, and I didn’t feel comfortable carrying a tune without being able to hear it. Every time I tried it felt like I was going too sharp or off-key, even if I was hitting the notes just fine. With Legerdemain’s help, it became a regular nightly ritual for me to share the songs of Earth with Red, Tanis, Grajo, and Wysteria around an artificially-lit campfire within our tent.
Somehow, more than healing wounds or pulling magical creatures out of thin air, Legerdemain felt like magic. Even I noticed my mood trending toward playful amusement instead of dogged purpose or careful reticence. The days flew by more quickly than I expected, and I slept a little less each night, excited to wake up and run tests on the limits of my newfound power. It wasn’t a megalomaniacal thing, celebrating power for power’s sake. More like a new toy to play with that I’d always wanted and never thought I’d be able to have. Some guys have a midlife crisis and buy the hot car from when they were a teenager, or try to sleep with someone who looks like their high school crush. I started mine fifteen years early and used sorcery to share Rob Zombie songs with magical creatures from another world. That’s basically the same thing.