Runic Magic seemed to be what built spell formations. At least in part. Having that hypothesis, I looked over all the runes I had discovered so far.

I would need to figure out something to help keep me alive. The fights I had been through so far, had been spaced out by as little as several minutes to as much as an hour. That fighting had worn me down, and more times than I cared to remember had been close calls. Simply inscribing the Rune of Warding on myself and empowering it wasn't going to cut it this time.

Doing all of this in my head was going to be rough. There were still several parts of the two spells I had yet to be able to break down, and now I needed to try and jury rig a formation to create a new spell.

I got out of the bathing pool and leaned against the basin to let myself air dry. Meanwhile, I imagined four of the runes I knew. Mana to be able to power the spell, lead that to Trauma so the spell recognizes damage, leading to Warding with the hopes that it would deflect or reduce the damage taken, put Arcane to the side between Trauma and Warding to add a little extra… If it would work the way I wanted, it would create an Arcane element shield. If I could get it to work.

Keeping the runes and the pathways to the side of my imaginary board, I added the two spells, Arcane Shot and Word of Healing. This time, I wasn't looking at the runes, but the symbols and shapes surrounding them that tied them together to create the effects they did. What was similar about them? What might be a common thing that I could use to tie my would-be spell together?

A few minutes passed as I did my best to mentally examine the spell formations. Not an easy task, when you were hoping that what you saw in your head was the actual thing used. At least I'd gotten dry.

Setting the leather smock near one of the cave walls, I sat down and tried to get comfortable. While trying to not lose the images in my head or lose my train of thought. Mental gymnastics at their best, let me tell ya.

I was starting to see a few repeating patterns in the non-Rune parts of the spell formations. I tried to isolate them, pull them away from the rest and compare. More than a few times I had to start over. It was slowly giving me a headache. Or I was hungry, if the emptiness I was suddenly aware of in my stomach was any indicator.

Another problem to worry about. I barely had something I could use as a bed, and now I needed food. Why didn't I grab some rat or bat meat to cook up? Because I had no fire or way to create one, and raw rat just did not sound like it would be appetizing.

I grabbed the pack I'd gotten as a quest reward and shoved my hand into it. It was bigger on the inside. I still couldn't shake the childish grin or glee… I had a bag of holding.

I was hoping I'd find something inside, I hadn't done more than pull out the smock and the boots when I first got it. Something brushed against my hand, or more specific my hand brushed up against something. Felt like a bar, maybe a thick candy bar, sans wrapping?

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I pulled it out and blinked, held it up to the light, which was dumb the light was coming from everywhere. But sure enough, it was what I thought it was. Or something really close.

Thick, dense breading, check. Fruit prices in all kinds of places, check. Looks like maybe some nuts and… I think that might be carrot slivers. Adventuring rations in the magic land of dungeons, monsters and gods is… Fruit cake.

“I can admit that it's at least filling, but uh… Fruit cake? Really?”

I wasn't expecting any kind of answer, and my stomach was telling me it didn't care. With a deep sigh of resignation, I took a bite and chewed. Yup, definitely Fruit cake adjacent.

Shaking my head, I went back to trying to formulate the shielding spell. “Grab these bits, order them around the runes. Use these bits to connect the runes and the… why do I feel like I'm working on a circuit board??”

My eyes flew open as I realized that. The spell formations were circuit cards. I didn't see a ground, but the power supply was the Mana Rune, no resistor… Trauma could fit in as a transistor, maybe? Especially with it lining with an element… I'd forgotten enough that I wouldn't want to work on a circuit card again, but still remembered enough to be able to trace everything out.

That realization helped. A lot. I was able to pull more of the symbology of the spell formations and wrap it up with Tommy chosen runes. “Close the circuit here…”

Nothing. I frowned, looking over everything. My framework against the two spells. The runes in each. What was missing? I examined both Arcane Shot and Word of Healing again, comparing the line of runes and symbols for several moments. Long enough that I'd finished off the candy bar sized fruit cake ration thing.

“A delivery method? Word of Healing is a word in some language… Arcane Shot doesn't have… Oh. Why didn't I see that before??”

I could barely make out a rune in a darker portion of the spell formation. I think the longer I was studying these, and the more experience I was gaining in Runic Magic and Arcana, was slowly revealing more and more things in the complex geometric shapes of the formations.

“Well, guess this will be a word then?”

I isolated the Word portion of Word of Healing. Removing the word itself, left a Rune of Voice. Had to think about that for a while, mulling it over. Odd terminology. Or was this my brain filling in gaps due to a lack of local knowledge?

Let's just sit that on the back burner. So for several more minutes I worked on slotting Rune of Voice into my spell ‘circuit’ and tried to think of a trigger word. “Maybe I'll get lucky and you'll take care of that? I mean, all I'm doing is reinventing the wheel here, variations on a theme.”

<

Ian’s Arcane Shield - causes damage from melee attacks to be reduced by a minor amount.>>

I blinked at the blue box. “You've got jokes now?”

<>

“Why do I get the feeling the long talk we should be having… isn't going to happen?”

I was met with silence after that. Well… what passes for it when dealing with blue boxes. It faded away.

But, I had a new spell, one that could provide a little defense. Hopefully it would be enough. It'd have to be, I didn't have any other spells to deconstruct to try and figure anything else out.

I looked at the quest again, noting there wasn't a timer or any restrictions or surprises. Sliding down to lay on the leather smock, I did my best to get comfortable and tried to sleep. I had more rat extermination. To do when I woke up.

What fun.