---Maddy---

It was strange how willing to wait and grateful the merchants were when they returned with another ‘protector’.

Or maybe it wasn't strange – it just hinted at the power they had as 'adventuers'...and told a tale of a world that favored the powerful. Maybe Maddy was overthinking things – maybe monsters attacking the caravan happened more often than she thought.

Climbing up the ladder to the caravan’s roof Renald made himself at home then looked at Maddy’s discarded stack of rune attempts – shuffling through the wooden slates like they were a stack of magazines.

She sat across from him – beside Jess – silently waiting for the Wizard to speak.

“Okay, I think it's best to just push through this,” Renald finally spoke, looking up and staring into Maddy’s eyes. “There’s no, ‘correct’ way of doing magic – you’ve started down a classic path but have either made a decision I dislike or made a mistake somewhere. I have one question before I critique your runework – are these” He pointed towards all her little symbols “your language or a language you know?”

Most of those symbols were ones she had copied from her leg. A few were made up.

“…no? I’m sorry I literally know nothing and the books I found weren’t a big help.”

Rifling through her three books he sighed and nodded. “Most wizards are secretive buggers. Proper tomes are hard to come by – I can’t imagine you finding anything useful in a regular shop.”

Taking a deep breath, the Wizard began his lesson.

“To start out with, I’m only giving this lesson to you – it won’t be as helpful for either of your companions and trying to follow it exactly for them will be useless at best and outright detrimental at worse – I’ll give a few pointers and there’s some overlap… but I’m not an expert on magic warriors so take every non-spellcaster note I give with a heavy dose of trip potion.”

Troy noticeably shrank at those words his attention fading.

“To start out with you need to know what a spell is.

All spells – all magic in general has three important components. Element. Concept and Shape.

Simple. Easy to remember.

In order we have: Element – that is the affinity of mana you push into the spell. It’s the hardest to change – it’s the hardest to gain and lose. Outside of very specific cases – making a decision to gain more elements for example – it’s the aspect of your spell you don’t have control over… as well as something that taints the rest of your spell in its innate concept.

A rudimentary and prehistoric view of magic is to split it as ‘element’ ‘everything else’. That’s an old model but does show how the ‘fuel’ is separate from the ‘spell’ nicely.

The next main part of a spell is the Concept. Concept is the goal. The meaning. The strength. The part of a spell that is a ‘spell’. It's harder to change and harder to gain than shape – but easier to do so than with your element. Using a spell with nothing but concepts, shapes and some pure mana without an affinity…that’s what we call cantrips. They can do a lot – and sometimes scrubbing the concept of your affinity out of the spell is beneficial…but they are always weaker.

Shape is the easiest to change. It’s the least or most important part of a spell depending on who you ask. Personally, some mages spend way too much time focusing on it but I can see why – they have something they can control and focus all their time squeezing out what they can from it.

By that I mean a lot of wizards lock themselves up in their towers and spend all their time slowly crafting their spells to be better.

Everything clear so far?” The wizard asked pausing in his lecture.

“What do they do?” Maddy asked – he hadn’t said enough.

The Wizard paused as if considering how to respond then started up once more.

“I’ll get there. For now, know this. Everyone from those who messed up their breaks, to those with unbroken skills, to monsters use these three parts. I’ll go over them once more and then give you some examples – feel free to ask your questions at the end.

The first building block is the element. Simplified it is simply the type of damage your spell does. It is the way your spell can affect reality. Elements are the ‘payload’ as some call it, or the ‘fuel’. For your spell to have any results the element has to affect reality – even if you aren’t attacking something the spell still needs to burn its results upon reality. Sorry, I’m first and foremost a fire wizard a few descriptions might show that.

Element is what people will resist your spell with – unless your concepts are strong enough to make it really weird at least.

The second building block is the method with which you transfer that elemental damage. Less straightforward than elements, it’s the ‘goal’. The ‘meaning’ behind the spell. Concepts are conditions, modifiers, rules, themes. It’s the part of a spell that can be called magic. The most important part as far as I’m concerned.

The final building block is the Shape. Shape is the form your spell takes. What it looks like, how it moves, what control you have over it. Some view this part of spellcraft as the most important – it’s the part you have the most control over after all…I already said that didn't I? Basically it's just a means to an end. It's important only because of how it affects the other two blocks but it's not important on its own. Does that make sense?

As promised, I'm going to explain all three using some examples.

Literally anything can be an element. Water, love. Unlike concepts or shapes, the elements shown in this book really are the best.” The wizard held Maddy’s affinity guide and pointed out the base elements once more.

“You don't want a weak element like water – water damage is so much worse than something like fire. You're lucky to have gained one of the 'good' elements for your first skill.

My master’s favourite description was using the element of surprise. As an affinity, it would be ‘surprise’ and ‘straightforward’ mana on the inverse.

If you make a ball of surprise mana and hit someone with it… they will be dealt surprise damage. That means they will literally be surprised as long as they don't resist your spell.

That's it. You'll have surprised them. The end. Only creatures intelligent enough to be surprised will be damaged by surprise damage – everything else will have natural defense too high for your spell to bypass… and you would find it hard to do anything but add and remove surprise from people no matter how good the rest of your concepts are.

Some people imagine gaining some rare element is good – but it's really not. That’s what concepts are for. Water damage in the short term is only good for ruining books and surprise mana is a parlour trick. If you think of water hitting something really fast and dealing bludgeoning damage... that's movement magic and you are better off gaining a movement affinity for that damage type then working on your water concept.

Now let's look at Concepts and Pseudo concepts once more.

Continuing to use surprise as an example, the concept of surprise is incredibly powerful and useful tool. Most assassin's and rogues use surprise concepts of a sort. The [backstab] skill in all of its affinity flavours, deals its damage through attacks on the unaware...

Adding its concept to an existing spell would make the spell deal more – or only deal – damage if done in a surprise attack. The concept of surprise will help your elemental damage slip past some defenses.

...Will strengthen your attack into being stronger than it should be.

...Will taint your entire spell and make it weaker if not done in a surprise manner.

The opposite concept – straightforwardness is also a valid concept even if it was a weak element. There's a large portion of warriors who like to tell you they are about to attack you. Their skills only works if they face creatures head on and with honesty. Sometimes they shout the name of their skill or describe it to you before they can use it.

Sometimes those who use these skills are called duelers – and sometimes they are called droners – because of how annoying their monologues are…but I’m getting carried away.

Another harder to wrap your head around example using the same concept of surprise, is a spell that only affects people who are surprised. A certain monster likes trying to scare people by appearing out of nowhere with a deathly face – usually of a dead loved one.

If you are shocked by the monster’s appearance you are hurt by necrotic damage – the death mana passing between the monster and victim through the concept of surprise. More indirect than a surprise attack but still a concept... the damage is still traveling from the 'mage' to the 'target' using surprise so it's still a concept.

That monster was just an example, but it actually has a more well known and dangerous mutant – there’s an illusion monster that hurts you through fear. It can only hurt you if you are afraid of it and because of how tied to the concept it is, it can also only be hurt if you aren’t frightened of it.

The final section is shape. It's boring but the part you have to most control over. All I want to say about it... But I guess I have to describe it for completion's sake, don’t I?”

The wizard paused his lecture and looked at Maddy as if hopeful she didn’t want to learn the final section. When she nodded, he sighed and continued.

“So! Shape! It's what everyone focuses on when they see a spell. How flashy is it. What does it look like?

Shape is important – don’t get me wrong – but its also something that has a default. Most spells will have a shape without too much effort and that shape will usually be a good one without any need to play with it too badly. Certainly not most of your life slowly refining it – not when you could gain more concepts or strengthen the ones you have.

Anyways let me show you what I mean–”

Waving his hand, the wizard flung tiny orbs of fire out – each forming into different shapes in front of the group.

"This right here is a flame spear. It's a fire element, projectile and piercing concept, it's shaped into a pointy spike because that pointy spike helps the piercing and projectile concept…the shape is its literal shape as a spiky thing.

Right beside it is a perfectly spherical fireball. It is functionally identical to the spike beside it – still has the same element and concepts – but I purposefully shaped it into this orb shape. The piercing concept was weakened slightly because it's not a very good piercing shape and it was harder to make it smooth – but that’s it. Same spell for the most part. see how shape didn't really effect it too badly? In fact adding in a shape other than the default made it worse.

Next over here we have a bird of fire. Same exact concepts and element... but now its beak is the point my piercing concept will center on.

Without adding a bird concept or an excessive amount of shape controls for me to manually move it about, this is functionally identical to the spike…but I’m also cultivating a phoenix theme, so I’d use this one with a few more concepts if I were going to attack.

Guess I need to show a different brand of spell, don’t I?”

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Waving his hand without waiting for a response, the wizard created another few shapes floating in front of them.

“This…is a fire wall. Its fire element, has the concept of placement, blocking and defense…and for me those concepts default into this convenient wall shape. I could use the same concepts and turn the spell into a bull or shield or knight protecting me, but the wall's nice and simple.

…And here’s yet another one. This is a chain of fire with concepts of restraint and capture. Not something I would use nonlethally – I would probably bite the bolt and use ice mana for that – but it’s a good visual example of the shape affecting how the concepts work.

Do you understand?” Renald paused and glanced at each of them.

Nodding Maddy was glad to see her friends were following along as well.

“Perfect." The wizard clapped his hands, then continued the lecture "Going back over each section a final time – I promise this is my last pass.

You have an element gained from your first skill. If you broke it properly you have it and it's inverse because mana is fundamentally one side of a coin. That's a wide range of potential – you can do most of what you want by sticking with those two sides of your mana…One of my master’s favorite sayings is ‘Creation and Destruction and everything in between’ translated to your affinity it's ‘life and death and everything in between’ because there’s a lot you can do just sticking with one.

As a proper teacher – even if just for a day – it's best for me to tell you all the possibilities and I’ve also picked up a second so here it goes.

The cost of gaining a second or even third element is stats. Your ability to gain stats, most of your current stats.

It's a hard price – not to be taken lightly.

You have to sacrifice several leanings and areas to gain more. To be exact to gain a second affinity you’ll need to sacrifice two. One for the new element and one for the mixture of that new element and your life/death affinity.

To get a third you’ll have to sacrifice four more. One for the element, two for its mixture with your first two elements and a fourth for the mixture of all three.

Four is almost unheard of – that costs 15 total out of 10 possible slots…and should be impossible naturally…but there’s always an insane bugger trying to make dragon fire which has elements of Fire, Light, Destruction, Death and probably speed as well. It's impossible naturally but by skipping intermediary steps certain madmen can stick with the four or five elements and then a single – usually several mangled slots – that fills with the mixture from all of them.

How does this affect you?

Well… it's just an option but most – if not all – good mages have a light and dark mana affinity as a second. On its own, it’s the weakest of the ‘good’ affinities... but as a second type it’s the absolute best.

And that’s because both offer a way to make attacks ethereal. It's also the easiest way of gaining a concept that allows stuff to pass through the air and projectiles are some of the best spells you can make.

The ability to attack through armour and walls is invaluable – as is the strength that using light magic to shape your spells will give you.

Having a spell or two that makes you seem like you are somewhere you are not...thats also pretty useful. It lets you project your body or confuse an enemy…invisibility is light magic with concepts of stealth or hiding and usually a dozen minor changes to reflect your image to nothing...

Think about it. That's all I'm going to say.

I would hate to push you towards any direction but there’s a reason it's known as the wizard’s element and picking two body stats to forgo is usually safe.” The wizard paused in his spiel seeming embarrassed.

“Some more unsolicited advice for your friends,” Renald spoke turning and pointing at Jess. “As a tank your creation magic is great but having Maddy’s life affinity and the ability to heal yourself would be a great addition…it would honestly increase your strength exponentially – two elements is nearly always better than one three is where it starts becoming a risk.

For you –” He continued pointing at Troy.

“– Having your tank’s creation magic would be invaluable for you as an archer – I bet you’ve been finding it hard to keep track and manage your arrow supply. If you had a creation affinity you could conjure your own arrows and never worry about running out again. A strong enough concept might be able to do the job as well, but – using a concept to do the job of an element is always a problem. It's like trying to create a concept with nothing but shapes – doable but always harder.

Anyways. Maddy – my short-term student. As a mage – unless you are heading down the asinine path of a spellsword – you want to spread out your concept pool. As many as you can gain moulded around into as many situations as you can think of. If you get several similar ones – that's synergy. Perfect. If you have several different ones that's versatility. Perfect.

The best – easiest and most reliable – way of gaining more concepts is to always have all your skills broken.

Then, with no system skills delve dungeons of your rank. Fight field bosses at the center of monster nests. Perform great feats and push yourself somehow.

Essentially gain more skills for your actions and then break them as well. Grow your library of concepts.

A great side effect is each skill increasing your available mana – each skill should increase your pool or pools and a bigger max mana is always appreciated.” The wizard laughed.

…seems like common sense but it's nice to have someone tell me that.

“Now! I want to come back to your runework.

Concepts are usually ‘actuated’ into a specific shape that's – usually – unique to you. If you make a magic item…actually just if you continue to use your scythe as your focus, it will become an item only you can use. It will also grow stronger and better able to channel your magic the longer and longer you invest yourself in it. This is good! It will make you a stronger mage…but you should be careful about putting too much of yourself into it. If you lose your focus, you might find yourself crippled – always create or carry a backup just in case you lose your main weapon or figure out a way to make sure you'll never lose it.

My clothing is completely covered in runes – most of my spells are embroidered into the inside of it…but I also have some mage tattoos for emergencies.

Anyways. Those concepts that you turned into runes are your own. They are tied to you and you alone. Sometimes mages with identical affinities and similar concepts will be able to share a focus or trade spells…that’s not something you can count on. For most cases just think of it like you having a spell system that no one else has built from the ground up...you can't use anyone else's and they can't use yours. I'm also heavily pushing for some things with my description but you don't have to follow my advice.

Some mages tattoo their concept into their body and nothing else – we sometimes call that a 'keystone'.

They then use nothing but their thoughts or gestures or voice to cast spells.

Personally having time to write the spell down first and the ability to reuse the spell later is more useful...but there's always mages who like being able to change the shape better on the fly.

Just for completion's sake, a 'proto' or 'unfinished concept' is one that can only be used in certain situations. A true concept can be shifted to whatever purpose you want – any purpose that fits the concept at least – while a ‘part-concept’ is one that can only be used in similar situations to the skill it was broken from. It's limited essentially.

You can either complete it by breaking more skills – the easy way – combining parts until you have a whole concept…or you can spend years of your life studying it until you upgrade it with your own knowledge and understanding.

Finally, shape is not an esoteric concept like you’ve been using it in your practice. It's not something to guess or brute force, it's you telling the spell what you want. That why I started off this lecture saying I dislike how you started your path. I can tell you are writing random symbols placed every which way, instead of simply using the symbols to describe what you want.

Usually – all the good mages at least – have shapes written in words. It’s written in your own language – you writing out what you want your spell to be. Using a language you can’t speak for the shaping is asinine – no matter how useful said language might be.

Now, obviously some languages work better than others – languages similar to runes like pictographic languages are usually better – but there’s no point using one if you don’t understand it.

There are a few languages specifically designed for magic – languages of magic they are called – and writing in one is usually considered the best…but you would have to learn that language before you could use it.

Some mages try and make up their own imaginary language –make their own language of magic – but I think that's a bit too much effort for little real gain.

At the end of the day it's also just an issue of efficiency – remember shape is not the most important part of a spell! Not unless you want to spend all your time in a dusty tower.

You can do away with a lot of shape runes just by having a strong mental picture and you can push past efficiency issues just by breaking more skills and having a bigger pool of mana.

Putting it all together a spell could look like this.” The wizard picked up one of Maddy’s wooden slates and began burning symbols into it.

“I draw my rune of ‘covering’. Then beside it, I write. ‘A cloak of flame to coat my frame’… sorry magic likes rhymes and short descriptions…now all I have to do is push mana through it and–”

A whirl of flames burst forth wrapping around the man. Slowly he was covered in shifting licks of fire. It wasn’t quite what Maddy would consider a cloak…but it did look nice.

“Voila, this is a spell. If I used it for more than a demonstration It would grow stronger and better fit the picture I had... but it's functional.

…let me just turn that off so I don’t burn this vehicle down annnnd there!” with a snap the wizard broke his spell flames flickering out as if they were never there to begin with.

I want to be able to do that!

“I don’t have a lot else I want to teach you at this stage, so for the rest of my bargained time I’m going to have you try and come up with some spells – draw them out – and I’ll give you feedback on them. You can also ask questions and I’ll try to answer you to the best of my abilities.”

Handing the stack of wooden slates over to Maddy once more, the Wizard turned to her friends.

“For you two…ignore some of what I said. I will give you what little I know, but keep in mind it’s a wizard’s understanding of your path – not someone following the same.

Usually – from what I can tell – magical warriors have both an easier time gaining or creating a concept from scratch. You might not even need to take one from a skill but that could be heresy I don’t know. What I do know is you’ll end up as more of a slave to it than us wizards. You should pick concepts you believe in to embody yourself by – no clue how you’ll go about that but it's pretty safe advice.

Gain strength by committing to your concepts.

I know some warriors have commandments or ‘rules’ they follow to make themselves stronger. Not drinking. Not touching women – no offence 'miss tank' – always telling the truth even if it would make a situation harder. Grow that single concept or group of closely knit concepts or rules or whatever…that image growing stronger should be your method of advancement. If you gain skills or concepts that are outside of this picture toss them. Feed them to your main concepts – somehow showing they are superior. Make sure to tie your concept to yourself 'somehow' – your magic works better on 'yourself' and 'you' are what you want to grow stronger.

Because you have an easier time making your own concept I want to warn you not to make a rigid one...

If you break any of those rules it will weaken you. If you break too many of them or break one that’s too brittle and tied too much to who you are, it might completely shatter your path – to the point you have to start from scratch.

Something like 'I am a rock' Is a great concept for you Miss tank...but 'I am invincible' is not – that would break at the first loss you take. it would be a bit stronger – and every battle you win or escape unscathed would increase its strength...but it would be brittle.

It’s a much risker path…but magic warriors are often able to kill unprepared wizards pretty easily so the strength you gain should be worth it. I won't persuade you to switch – to do that you would have to rip out a lot of what you are and start from scratch.

Maddy! I can see you listening – don’t even think of trying something like that. More concepts are better. Don’t bother trying to strengthen any of them until you have dozens of them and find you keep using one more often than others.

Your first job should be to create a spell for every possible situation you find yourself in. A spell to block or shield yourself – you don’t have to focus on it if you are relying on your friend here to protect you… but you should have it just in case.

A spell to hit something far away – don’t think about replacing your archer friend you just need to be able to do it.

Build up your basics. Break a minimum of three skills – Make triple that in spells. Do that again once you’ve become more experienced.

Put your spells all across your person. Place them on your weapon. Hide them in your clothes. Burn a spell that will help you escape into your flesh – just in case you ever get stripped and locked in a prison. Try and create a spell that doesn’t require any physical runework – using nothing but your movement and words and a strong enough picture. Make a cantrip or two that’s completely different from your elements.

Essentially plan for every eventuality. That’s what being a mage means.

Then – and only once you’ve become a mage – can you look higher and think about combining spells and creating a theme.

Remember! Only after you have built a foundation to your satisfaction should you even think about a greater image…” Putting out his hands and the wizard concentrated and crafted sculptures of light.

Each sculpture slowly shifted and formed into different versions of Maddy. Of things she could be.

The first was a strong looking version of her. Leaves flew about fading from green to brown in the air and she stood on a mound of dirt. Her scythe seemed to have returned slightly to its farming roots – something about the rudimentary illusion screamed ‘fall’ to her.

“A woman of seasons. Of the harvest. Of rot creating fertile grounds for new growth.” The wizard spoke noting her gaze on the image.

A second picture had her in a black cloak – her scythe purple and shimmering in the evening light. A sense of finality was contained in her posture and the weapon.

“A reaper. A woman who kills. Who collects souls for their final rest. A living agent of death.” The wizard continued his descriptions – smirking slightly as she looked at it.

A third picture had her having entirely abandoned her scythe. She wore a white tunic and gloves.

“A healer. One who only kills diseases – who heals the sick. A women loved by many.”

A fourth had her holding a skull in one hand. Surrounding her were swirling streams of mist – spirits of the dead passing in and out of her body.

“A Lich. A creature more dead than alive. Abandoning your fragile mortal coil, you created a phylactery and bound your spirit to a new home.”

Maddy moved on.

“A gardener. Your beds are full of corpses fertilizing your new growth.”

“A queen of rot. Your mushrooms grow through all. Your kingdom of fungus spreads unstopped.”

“The builder of a great tree. The commander of skeletons. The creator of new life.” The more sculptures the wizard made the less work went into them. They shifted as she looked at them as if he was still trying to figure out how to show them.

“That final stage is where you want to do something like the warriors over there. Combine your skills. Flavour them. Decide to only use life or only use death that 'restriction' making the one you do use stronger. Decide to try and combine aspects of both in all you do… or leave them as a simple fuel. Theme yourself and gain strength through that image.

Do you have any questions? I could probably go on for ages, but I feel like I’ve told you all you might need…I’ve already probably dropped too much on you at once. If not, you should make your spells! I want to provide some practical experience before the day is done.

Maddy stared down at her slate her mind whirring. Like the final display, her mind was currently picturing herself as a hundred different possibilities. She liked a bit from this one and a bit from that one…Wait he said not to focus on that yet – she should build her foundation first.

Shaking herself into focus Maddy reached out and broke her second skill. This time it took but a focus of attention – her mana reaching out and wrapping around the skill just out of reach of her.

It melted away a rush of ideas coming forth.

No system prompt accompanied it – it seemed her breaking it in this manner was enough consent for the system to leave her alone.

The concept of sound. Bits and pieces of the concept of words and emotions.

Immediately Maddy set to work finding the runes for each of them.

She had some studying ahead of her – hopefully this would be more effective than the last time!