When Jeb woke up, he was a little surprised to see the sky above him. It was sometime in the early morning, he was fairly certain.
As he sat up, he had a momentary sense of panic as he realized that he had collapsed while holding his lute. Thinking about it, he realized that he knew where his lute was: slightly to his left and uninjured. With that perspective came another realization.
Jeb looked around at the still forms of unconscious bees. Each of them felt like some small pinprick of light inside of him. Some instinct told him to start sending Mana in their direction.
Trying to send the Mana, Jeb noticed something strange. It was nearly impossible for him to send Mana to any of the individual bees. He could either send Mana to the swarm as a whole or to the queen. Shrugging, Jeb split his flow of Mana into two.
To his surprise, even as the Mana was clearly flowing, Jeb didn’t notice his own Mana pool decreasing. In case his sense had gotten thrown off from the binding, he double checked his Status. It agreed with his instincts, showing no decrease in his Mana.
Still, the flow of Mana into the swarm and queen was doing something. The queen was obviously the first bee to start moving again. She started shaking slightly as her wings fluttered on and off. When they stabilized, she flew back inside the hive.
More and more bees started twitching after that. If Jeb hadn’t been bound to them, he was certain that the sight would have been disturbing. Even bound, though, it was a little disconcerting.
The bees woke up in groups of Elemental Attunement. The first to wake were the Unattuned bees, who didn’t disturb the ambient Mana too much. Immediately after them, though, the Sand Attuned bees started to stir.
Jeb had the feeling that the air itself had been replaced by sand. He was slowly drowning, he knew. As he started to panic, though, the bees finished their ascent and the Mana in the air stabilized again. They flew into the hive.
When the Fire Attuned bees started to rise, Jeb thought that he knew what to expect. The air didn’t grow hotter, but he still felt the impression of flames licking across his skin and scorching his lungs. Since he knew that it was only temporary, it was slightly easier to ignore.
After the Fire Mana passed, Jeb was buffeted by Air Mana, suffocated by Earth Mana, and drowned in Water Mana. Through them all, his smile slowly grew. As each part of the swarm came back to wakefulness, Jeb felt his connection to them grow.
When all of the swarm was awake, he realized that he could not distinguish them from the hive they were in. That made some amount of sense when he considered that he had bound them after they bound each other. Thinking about Binding made Jeb realize that he had a Quest to complete.
Congratulations! You have completed the Personal Quest “Bind your Lute”. Rewards: One Tier Five Stone.
The currency appeared in front of him and he grabbed it before it could fall. It was nice of the Bard to pay for the cost of the practice lute, especially since Jeb could not imagine giving up the lute now. Like his aunt had said, the lute felt like another limb of his.
Testing it out, Jeb tried playing the lute without picking it up. It was incredibly taxing, and he felt his soul strain with the effort of creating a sound. In the end, he was unable to produce more sound than the light breeze running across the strings already did.
Whether that was a skill he’d need to develop, a Skill he needed to learn, or something impossible, Jeb was ready to find out. Packing the lute away, though, even he could see how much it blazed with Magic. He had a feeling that it had something to do with binding the hive and swarm at the same time.
Shrugging, Jeb set the lute case down and opened it up. He pulled back the felt inside and paged through the Enchanting Schematic the Librarian had given him. It seemed easy enough, especially compared to the Wand of Fireballs he’d made.
Jeb didn’t want to just follow the Schematic by rote, though. If there was anything that he had learned over the months since unlocking his Class, it was that understanding how Magic worked was just as important as making it work. Well, he amended to himself, it’s at least on the same level of importance. At the end of the day, if he had to choose between understanding and getting the Enchantment to work, he would choose a working Enchantment.
As he read, the Schematic seemed to make more and more sense. It was build on an incredibly inefficient Enchantment. Jeb wasn’t entirely sure what the initial effect was supposed to be, but he decided it probably didn’t matter.
He saw a number of parallels to how he had made the Attune Water Mana staff intentionally inefficient for aesthetic purposes. The difference here was that the inefficiencies didn’t resonate with each other. Instead of producing a fog or anything else, the lines of the Enchantment would absorb any Mana above ambient levels and basically just reinforce themselves.
How the Enchantment could detect baseline levels was a little confusing for Jeb to understand at first. When he did, though, he was glad he had taken the Schematic apart first. The default was to set the Enchantment on the outside of a container. It would then absorb any Mana from within the Enchantment. Everything facing outwards was its definition of ambient.
In my case-
He laughed a little at the accidental pun he had made, then refocused. In my situation, I’ll need to flip this rune here, he figured out. Nodding once he felt like he understood what the Enchanting Schematic did, he began to carve the inside of his case.
When he had finished the Enchantment, it was nearly noon. The Schematic claimed that it was not a relatively Mana hungry Enchantment, but Jeb was still nervous. What if this was the time that his Mana failed him?
As he thought that, Jeb felt the support of the hive in the back of his mind. Even his lute seemed like it was reaching out to him, offering back some small portion of the Mana he had poured into it. Their support urged him on, and he began to force the Enchantment to become real.
One place Jeb immediately noticed that this Enchantment was easier than the Wand was that it had no Sub Enchantments. Instead, he just had to force his will onto the world in a single place. “Cases are meant to protect lutes,” he said, feeling the world resonate with him. “Knowing that this lute is Magical will make it less safe.”
To Jeb’s surprise, that seemed to be enough. His Mana flowed out of him and into the lute. When the Enchantment had stabilized, he realized that he had been worried about nothing. At most, it had taken one hundred Mana.
He carefully replaced the felt inside the case, hiding all of the lines of the Enchantment. When he closed the case with the lute inside of it, Jeb was shocked. He still knew on a deeper than intellectual level that the lute was within it and connected to him. But, to his Magical senses, it was just a lute case.
Jeb was certain that if he had a Skill explicitly focused on Magical sight that he would be able to notice something strange in the way that the lute case reflected Mana, but he wasn’t certain if those Skills existed. In any case, it would stand up to a cursory examination, which was his primary goal. He ran back home to grab his staff, remembering that he was trying to make Water Attuned Wood, though he was a little hazy on why he was trying to do so.
I’ll probably remember soon, he justified to himself, and it’s not like having my Mana pool full does me any good as it is. He quickly waved to his mother as he ran through the kitchen. When he came back down carrying the staff, she cocked her head but said nothing.
On the way to the Library, Jeb tried to find if there was a rate he could feed Mana into the staff that wouldn’t end up emptying his pool. To his disappointment, it seemed as though his Mana pool either filled or emptied. He, at least, could not do both at once. Jeb shrugged and began feeding Mana as quickly as he could through the Glyph.
As he did, the Glyph grew brighter and brighter. The misty Mana coming off of it grew more and more real to his sight. His Mana quickly emptied, which was a great piece of motivation for him to grow his Mana pool. He imagined walking in somewhere, staff glowing like a sun, mist steaming off of it in clear defiance. Jeb wasn’t certain why the effect stuck with him, but it did.
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His Mana slowly refilled as he finished the walk to the Library. Just before opening the door, Jeb once more emptied his Mana pool and watched how it lit the staff up. He considered the fact that pushing less Mana in for a longer amount of time might be more efficient in terms of actually making the wood Water Aligned.
Jeb reached out for the door handle. As he did, though, the Librarian jerked the door open. He seemed more flustered than normal. When he saw that it was Jeb in front of the Library, he shook his head and turned around.
“What can I help you with today?” he asked.
“I would like to buy my practice lute,” Jeb said, searching his pockets for the Tier Five Stone that the knew was inside of them. In the time it took him to remember that the Stone was inside of his lute case, the Librarian had the contract held out. He opened the case, and the Librarian dropped the contract.
“Here you go!” Jeb said happily, holding out the reward the Bard had given him.
“Thank you,” the Librarian said. It was clear even to Jeb that the words came out from the training he had on interacting with patrons more than any actual thought.
“Did I do something wrong?” Jeb asked.
“No, but I can see that you have bound your lute,” the Librarian said, pulling his thoughts back together.
“I think it might also be that I bound the swarm and the hive at the same time,” Jeb said, “but you would know better than me.”
“I would generally agree with your instincts here,” the Librarian nodded, “the Mana signature coming off of the lute is not what I would expect for a lute that was bound to a First Tier Mud Mage.” That statement seemed to spark some thought in the Librarian’s mind, because Jeb saw pages flip by.
After a moment, the pages died down and the Librarian continued, “no, that is not what the lute’s signature would look like. When you account for a bound hive, it nearly looks right, but there is something else inside of the signature that is still missing.”
“I have mentioned that the bees were Elementally Attuning themselves, right?” Jeb asked.
A light flashed in the Librarian’s eyes. “That would do it! Yes, given what you have done, your lute’s Mana signature seems completely reasonable. Also fantastic work on the Enchantment for the case. Even though I knew that it was there, it still took an effort to notice it.”
“Could it be because I inscribed the inside of the case?” Jeb asked.
“It is possible,” the Librarian allowed, “though I would attribute it more to your own skill with Enchanting. Not many First Tier people have the patience and coordination it takes to Enchant.”
Jeb went to return the Enchanting Schematic, but the Librarian held out a hand. “You might need this again,” he said, handing it back to Jeb.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 6457/100
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Total Statistic Load: 352 Physical Load: 127 Strength: 29 Dexterity: 22 Endurance: 31 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 225 Intelligence: 47 Willpower: 52 Magic Affinity: 55 Mana Depth: 37 Charisma: 34
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Mana: 1070
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Glyph Attunement: 26 Least Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana - Efficient Tier 2 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Sand Mana Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand Tier 1 Spell Attune Sand Mana - Efficient Tier 2 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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Skills: Least Mud Magic Meditation Mana Manipulation Spell Glyphing Improved Glyph Groking Gift of Gab Running Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lifting Athletics Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination Brewing Distilling Bardic Magic Smithing Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement Enchanting
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)