I had a double-take, one because I was excited to have someone who was more on my level in terms of martial skill . . . and TWO because I’d been straight up jonesing to get the construction of my Grimoire started. The lessons about spellbooks and lexicons had quickly lost their magic as the lectures droned on but Grimoires were far cooler than that.
Among powerful magic users, Grimoires were usually the second or third item that was fashioned by the magic user in question. Think about the steps in terms of milestones as people still have a tendency to do whatever the hell they want as they progress. The first milestone, typically, would be a wand or a staff depending on how they viewed their magic. For those that needed more help in focusing magic then they would customarily start with a wand. For those trying to handle large spells or work great feats of magic then they would typically work on making a staff. The wand or staff served as a magical focus, an arcane antennae used to amplify magical spells or to help alleviate the burden of intense focus-based work. It was not unusual for wizards to have both tools at the ready.
The second milestone tended to be some sort of personal mana battery or a device to hold a few spells ready at all times. Both concepts are not that far apart, allowing them to fit within the same framework of progress. Generally speaking, most apprentices went with the basics such as a jewel in a necklace that could project a powerful magical shield in a sphere or a ‘recall’ teleport spell to get them out of danger. Various magical garments with protective enchantments were also included in this category, the desire to beef up oneself in the defensive spectrum so death wasn’t just one clumsy punch away.
Grimoires were generally the third milestone in line to be researched but often pushed back because they required far more expertise. They were the mark of someone who had proven their magical chops, gone through the fire so to speak. Grimoires weren’t just spellbooks or lexicons, they were an amalgamation of both with something extra, something personal mixed in. Like spellbooks, Grimoires did have spells and notes about the spell plus other relevant magics or circumstances imprinted within it. And similar to a lexicon, Grimoires tended to contain lists or ‘bodies’ of spellwork to encapsulate a frame upon which more magic could be learned.
Yet, the defining features of a Grimoire were hinted at by the legends surrounding them. Prominent magical families staked their legacies, their bloodlines on Grimoires created by some great magical progenitor of the past. These books were meant to be a guiding force, one that could live on. With this in mind, the writer had to put something into the Grimoire so that it could think. It was not uncommon for great wizards that chose to have big families or powerful apprentices to construct Grimoires on their deathbeds so that their works could live on, imbuing the book with greatly enhanced durability and a guiding mind or spirit to mentor the next generation.
Creating said Grimoire is an intensely personal journey. According to the Sun Aelves, the basic process was widely known however the more powerful Grimoires required a more indepth undertaking. I remember Cassandra’s odd glee when she told me about how the minotaurs used the bodies of their deceased shamans when making Grimoires for the new shaman. That story creeped me out the most. More common than that though were tales of tracking down and using ingredients from powerful magical creatures as the base of the Grimoire and then ritualistically bleeding into the almost completed book to force it to be more ‘you’ than ‘the dead creature you made it from’.
I still needed to sit down and absorb the memories of the orb containing the instructions for a Grimoire that I got from Hermes. It would be absolutely negligent of me to forge ahead without heeding the advice of a gen-u-wine deity! Even though I still thought of Hermes as a fucking bastard. Asshole drank all my good liquor way back when.
Scott snapped his fingers a few times. “Hey! Hey! You still with us?”
“Huh? What?” I said, pulling myself out of my thoughts. The dirt clods underneath my fingers crumpled as I stood up, dusting my hands off. “Yes! Duh! Cool, uhm . . . yes to the first and what’s in the bag?” I stretched, looking up before stepping forward. “I’m guessing that’s for me?”
Snorting at my poorly hidden excitement, Scott gestured for me to go ahead. “Since our uber-powerful sorcerer supreme can’t be a normal person with social skills who simply asks for or purchases the things he needs, the town decided to chip in a bit to get you this.”
Toreen leaned forward. “He means, this is a thank you for making all of our lives easier by creating enchanted items for our women. It’s gone a long way towards creating peace in the home.”
I chuckled, imagining being a stay at home dad but without modern conveniences. “Running water, air-conditioning, and working appliances make a difference, huh?” Rustling through the bag, I pulled out a few shiny, misshapen orbs that looked like smooth rocks but my Earth Sorcery clearly told me that these were definitely not within my purview. Every single one of them on one side had a long flat side, as if they were stuck to something prior to being given to me. As I touched them, I couldn’t help the feeling of pure wonder as raw mana vibrated when I cast my senses into them.
“What is this?” I asked, staring down at the odd looking mystery. “I sense mana, something like bone or rock but not really . . .”
Umale took a sip of water from a canteen before answering. “Your friend is generous. Those have different names depending on where you come from but those are immature beast cores or nascent essence drops. Magical creatures can develop those after exposure to intense environments saturated with energy or eating something unusually powerful. They look like they were removed from behind the breastbone of an animal.”
I turned the essence drops over, the colors glowing from their depths at odds with the shades covering the outside. For instance, the biggest essence drop was blood red all the way through except for the very center where a miniature sun of solid white light lived. The smallest essence drop was deep blue with solid, jagged streaks of yellow light that looked like alien veins.
Scott didn’t even try to hide his pride. “I don’t wanna brag but those babies took a lot of blood and sweat to get. Cassandra and Lovera told me that these little gems would be useful to you and the bodies of the creatures we harvested them from have been put to good use. Some, we ate. The offal and other stuff we didn’t need, we fed to the Flesh Golem, and the rest was divided into some magical stuff I don’t really give a shit about.”
I raised an eyebrow but Toreen snorted. “He means to say that the skins of the creatures are being made into clothes and armor while the bones are being rendered into either alchemical ingredients or shaped into weapons.”
I felt Kraken’s mental touch as I shrugged, discounting the Glyph-Blade’s lack of care about certain magical items. Clearly, he thought he didn’t need any enhancement beyond his own arcane gifts and the tattoos provided by the Flesh Golem. I didn’t blame him. His own shit was pretty cool and that dispelling ability was beyond useful. He could walk into a cabal of well-armed wizards and witches and kill them all with a few twitches of his hand. They wouldn’t stand a chance. Scott’s brilliant decision to dedicate a considerable amount of time, effort, and power into disabling magical items and spells would make him Death on wheels for his sentient enemies or creatures with mystical abilities.
And I was not blind to his choice. Clearly, he was prepared in case I went rogue. I held back a grin. Good for Scott. That man deserved his place at second in command of New Richmond.
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“What’s this other stuff?” I asked, pulling out the rest of the materials from the bag.
Kalderan laughed. “A shopping list.”
********
All of it was a ploy. Well, at least half of it was a ploy, a cunning plan. Now that I think about it, maybe a solid thirty percent of the ‘shopping trip’ was a brilliant ruse to get me to meet the lovely Aelven lady who wanted to lock me down. Royalty had her eyes on me.
What should have been a peaceful walk to the nearby river and then a calm ride out to the settlement of the Sun Aelves was really a powwow of matrimonial proportions. Toreen just looked too eager. Umale couldn’t hide his smug grin and fucking Kalderan just radiated victory. That right there set the alarm bells ringing in my head. It’s because those bastards could hear the freaking wedding bells.
Plenty of peaceful trails cut through the nearby woods leading to and from New Richmond. The largest of which led to the north where the best natural coves were just a bit west of where I had built the main power setup for the town. I liked what the kids had done with the place, growing railing and almost hidden staircases that snuck up the side of massive trees. I could see little treehouses adorning wide branches and the closer we got to the river the more I could see clever little setups where people could hook their light canoes up to a pulley and haul them off the ground.
Someone had even taken the time to shape nearby rocks and trees to form large docks that stood proud in the calm water. Nothing less than a bomb could take those suckers out. If anything, they were overbuilt. At least, until I saw the freaking magical Aelven yacht that bobbed with the current.
No way. No sir. Hell naw. I ain’t going down like this.
Kraken clued me in as I noticed the details. But Lovera was the one who spilled the beans. Lines of gold filigree stretched from stem to stern and the sails were conspicuously missing. I almost missed my clues as Lovera gushed about the stuff I had made for her and then compared my craftsmanship to her husband before noting how supernaturally beautiful the Aelven men were. I kept walking woodenly, almost being pulled towards the marvel of engineering by an alien force.
With a wink and sly smile, Lovera hinted at how drop-dead gorgeous the women must be. I just nodded along, examining the ship and barely able to wait until I could get my hands on it to examine the obvious masterwork. Lacquered wood that shone with pure mana almost singing of its own accord. Ivory railing and ebony spine guards for the skeleton of the boat almost dared attackers to test their mettle against its construction.
A hint of golden hair glistened in the sunlight just off the bow of the ship and it all came rushing back.
[IT’S A TRAP!]
Kraken’s shrill warning cut through the mental noise even though he was still far away back with Susan the zombie buried underneath the road. I wondered at the slight addition of hilarity to his tone but shunted that to the side. I had more important things to avoid. Namely, meeting the fucking resident royalty of the Sun Aelves today. I thought a Queen would rule from afar but I could see the damn crown even from here.
The side of the yacht opened up as it approached the dock, the gangplank extending too smoothly for it to be anything other than alive. More like a tongue than a piece of machinery. I gaped, staring at the strange boat in disbelief. I couldn’t find one join, one indication that this was manufactured. If anything, the smooth whorls in the wood combined with the growth rings peeking out were more than enough evidence for me to believe that this craft was grown.
Not grown in sections and put together, but one massive tree was planted and molded by immense skill and power to take on a new form as a living boat. The main mast grew out of the center of the deck, sprouting humongous leaves that functioned as both the sails and the power system. And it wasn’t small either. This absolute beast could have comfortably fit two eighteen wheelers on its deck with room to spare.
My own surprise at the mindblowing marvel of arcane ingenuity right in front of me held me captive more than the prancing little thing that desperately tried to get my attention. I didn’t fall for the flashing jewels, the graceful tiara, the bouncy assets. Not even the soft, high voice of someone who genuinely wanted to meet me. The joy on her face almost seemed to contain captured rays from the sun itself. Every single Sun Aelf fell to their knees in a single motion and all of the human women at least paused if not curtsied.
I kept right on walking. I walked right past the far too bubbly creature in a daze, eyes wide and stepping out onto the surface of the water. I didn’t even hear the lady Aelf introduce herself.
Spears from her company of guards tried to block my path but a gentle wave of my gauntleted hand pushed them aside with ease. The very earth rose up in two gentle waves forcing a path between the stumbling men allowing me to walk unhindered. I ignored the gangplank because I didn’t need it. I just wanted to get closer to the craft. It sang to me.
The familiar waters of the Rappahannock lifted me, working in concert with my desire to get closer to this boat. Even my desires were hidden from me until I put my hands on the smooth hull and then it hit me. I knew this boat. Better yet, I knew where it came from.
“Yggdrasil.” I murmured, closing my eyes and letting the aura of the living craft flood my senses. “And something else, something . . . . more.” It was somewhere between an animal, a plant, and a semi-intelligent being. Its very core resonated with me, the very fact that it was a living wood born from and shaped to house an amalgamation of different trees only called to me more. “Mangrove mixed with sequoia . . . is that a rubber tree? And then two other kinds that are definitely not from Earth.”
With an unconscious thought, Gungnir snapped into existence, falling into my outstretched hand. I could hear the crowd of Sun Aelf guards gasp and immediately unsheathe blades at the unusual sight. I ignored them, focusing on more important things. With bated breath, I ran my senses through Gungnir as it sat in my left hand but also through the boat as my right hand rested on it. The same base material of my spear’s haft vibrated as it recognized itself or a closely related cousin. A sense of welcome washed between us as I gently tapped the boat’s hull with Gungnir, establishing a warm connection. The artifacts thrummed back and forth, their natures resonating more and more before I pulled back.
But not only did my Nature Sorcery beg to commune with the boat, my Water Sorcery just had to know why this strange thing belonged in the water. The shapes, the design, something in the core of the boat synchronized with the river. If you weren’t careful, magical senses could easily be fooled into thinking that nothing was here except for a large patch of water. The mechanism within functioned as both a cloak to deceive prying eyes and an efficiency engine that worked with the river to streamline the journey.
Behind me, a warm laugh from a too sunny disposition startled me out of my reverie. “Like my boat?”
I turned, finally getting a good luck at the obvious owner of the yacht. Golden eyes. Golden hair. Even her dusky skin had a golden hue. Her parents prayed at the altar of golden sand and gold itself to produce something this exotic. It was as if a European princess and an Arabian princess were blended together and then magically whitewashed with golden hues and a tasteful dash of the desert’s shadows to top her off.
Oh, she was definitely alive, not some statue animated by magic. Everything about her was bursting with life, an orchestra of vitality and beauty. Soft skin and long hair with refined jewelry holding back mountains of energies just waiting for her call. I almost got lost again as my Mana Sorcery begged me to examine her hidden weapons but I had better sense than to approach royalty too fast. Slim daggers made from exotic materials were strapped to her thigh; I only noticed because her light robes shifted with the wind revealing too much leg. No matter where I looked at her, even her face, I felt like she was trying to pull me in.
This is how celebrities must feel around groupies. Damn uncomfortable. Meeting her eyes was difficult even though she floated of her own accord to be level with me as I stood on a column of water where I was examining her boat. Her necklace caught my eye, a masterfully worked silver chain holding a slender black emerald sat between her breasts but I quickly curtailed my gaze. The more I looked at her, the more I could see that she really was young. I’d put her at nineteen in human years, and that was being generous. I knew from my conversations with Toreen and Kalderan that Aelves enjoyed a much greater lifespan than humans.
She waved at the boat suggestively and waggled her eyebrows. “It’s here for you. Care for a ride?”