---Maddy---
Maddy limped over towards her partner and untied him. He seemed relatively unscathed but an uneasy look seeped through his whole body as he stared to the side.
…he also got a prophecy huh.
Knowing he wanted silence, Maddy led the way down the street continuing past building after building until they reached the corner with the Inn. James grabbed a backpack he had looted from his copy and slipped it on before following her – his backpack almost faded away as if he were used to wearing it.
Jess stood in the street eyes glazed as she stared down at her hands.
“Hey!” Maddy called out speeding up as she got closer to her friend.
“Hey,” Jess responded focusing on her a pained look crossing over her face.
“What’s wrong?” Maddy rushed the last few feet to her friend and grabbed her arm firmly.
“I…I found who was cursing everyone…I found her stabbing voodoo dolls and flinging scraps of dangerous looking mana everywhere and I killed her and then…” Jess breathed heavily “It was that woman. The one forced into a twisted destiny. I didn’t know. She just wanted out. I didn’t mean-“
“It's okay,” Maddy spoke softly nodding to her friend. Something trickled through her mind then and there. Her friend was pretty distraught over killing the woman…this was the first humanoid figure she had killed and it seemed to have beaten her down thoroughly.
Maddy on the other hand had killed her copy without thinking about it. All that work trying to make sure she was thinking about how to be a good person…and she hadn’t even registered the death besides a faint relief that it was over and she had won.
Am I a bad person? I’m probably just in shock. That makes sense.
…
The group ended up leaving the dungeon after being thanked profusely by the priest.
All four of them had had an entirely different experience. Troy…perhaps because he had never drank of the future water but he hadn’t dealt with a single time shenanigan his entire stay. Instead it had been as if he were constantly under attack – boulders falling towards him with barely any warning, boiling water being dumped out a window towards him, a bull from the field escaping and charging past.
He had nearly died dozens of times but had trained his reaction time and increased his perceptive power by leaps and bounds. His dungeon experience ended up being the most tame of the entire group – even as the stuff he had to dodge grew stronger and faster and harder to spot his reaction speed and perception increased in time.
Jess had found herself ‘tricked’ or ‘forced’ into completing a tragic story. Theoretically she had just completed the dungeon – or at least the dungeon’s first floor – how it was meant to be completed…but for some reason the experience shook her. Jess kept saying she was supposed to protect and she had failed.
James had been beaten by his clone until Maddy freed him and Maddy as the worst off, had killed her future self unwittingly starting a clock for her own death.
They left the dungeon in relative silence passing through a short passageway and out of the door as soon as they did.
“Don’t look down by the way,” Maddy drifted back towards James as she walked realizing he hadn’t passed through the official channels.
“There's hypnotic mental horrors below the glass floor. If you catch a glimpse you’ll be sucked away” She continued to explain then watched him start and nod slightly as he understood.
Not having a real goal, the group started back towards the inn they had rented but were stopped part way.
Less than a minute after they exited the dungeon, the queen of the city floated past. She looked much more relaxed than the last time Maddy had seen her – lounging sideways on her floating blue disk as if it were a couch instead of a flat pane of glass. The queen’s eyes lingered for quite a while on James before flicking to Maddy.
“You survived! Have you cleared the dungeon already? It took me over a month when I went through…” The queen spoke sitting up and swinging her legs around to dangle in front of them.
“Who’s this?” James began but Maddy nodded.
“We beat…something. At least the first floor. I have some questions for you – I really hope you’ll let us cash in some of that reward you were talking about.
Eyes glazing for a microsecond as if checking something the queen nodded, a happy look on her face. “Sure, I can already see some of the results of your partial clear. If we are going 'spend some time talking I want to find a place to eat first. Any preferences?” The queen asked flicking her fingers a few times as if swiping through an invisible iPad.
The group stared at her in silence for a moment.
“Do you have anywhere with magic food?” James spoke up as if trying to kill the awkward silence. “Anywhere with meals, you can’t get normally?”
The queen nodded slightly at the comment. “Sure, I’ll take you to a tourist trap. How does spicy food sound?”
A round of noncommittal shrugs and nods met her question. “Perfect, follow me it's near the edge of the adventurers district.”
…
The group was led into an empty looking bar and brought to a secluded corner with a long booth. Nodding to the barkeeper and calling for the “full special” the queen slid into a spot near the back and excitedly fiddled with a napkin.
The whole experience was incredibly disconcerting. If last time Maddy was being grilled by the queen she had given off heavy police vibes, this time she looked like nothing more than a toddler being brought to McDonalds.
“I’ll also take a spiked spike slush Earl,” She called across the room then turned and gestured for everyone to join her in the booth impatiently.
Maddy slid in first ending up across from the queen then stared over her eyes flickering up and down the woman. Maddy’s mental model of the queen’s personality shifted and reaffirmed until she was relatively confident she knew what the queen was like. It all amounted to power – the queen was strong enough not to care what anyone thought but self conscious enough she tried to put on an act in certain situations. Maddy would be willing to bet money the queen used to be an adventurer or similar and this current personality was her ‘real’ one when she wasn’t trying to intimidate.
“So I have some questions about soul stats and domains.” Maddy began before being cut off.
“Food first, Then I’ll answer your questions as I like – you haven’t done a full clear after all.” Nodding about to the group the queen smiled wildly as a small platter was brought towards them.
“Thanks Earl!” She nodded to the barkeeper – who seemed to be doubling as a waiter.
Pointing towards the platter of small meat-like balls as soon as they were set up the queen spoke< a grin on her face.
“Want to give everyone the full rundown Earl? Or do you think it's more fun as a blind test?”
Grunting the barkeeper looked at her and sighed. He bent over the table and began pointing about the platter.
“Here at ‘Spicy Earls’ we provide all nine different spicy flavours cooked to conceptual perfection. The Spicy concept contains the idea of a good flavour strong enough to almost hurt without actually damaging your body. Spicy hot for example has the burn of fire mana while spicy void has the creeping sent of oblivion – here we’ve managed to replicate the same effect for the rest of the common damage types. Each row on the appetizer platter has a different spicy flavour – the far right one is spicy spike, the piercing kinetic mana giving it a sharp flavour and-“ Nodding the queen cut him off. “I think roulette is better after the overview. Thanks Earl! That will be all.”
Staring at her with a tired look Earl straightened up then nodded to everyone at the table and headed back to his position behind the bar.
“Earl used to banter more back when we were a party.” The queen stage whispered then pointed across at the table.
“This is the weak tray. Earl will bring out the stronger stuff once everyone’s gotten a taste for the flavours."
Looking about them expectantly the group stared at the meat before hesitantly reaching out.
“Alright, I believe you said you had questions?” The queen finally turned to Maddy brought a sharp-looking glass to her lips and downed some of her spike slush.
“I do. Okay. First question is about soul stats. No one’s been able to tell me much about them and I want to know if they are worth keeping or if I should drop them for a third affinity.” Maddy asked.
She needed to know exactly what she was giving up and gaining if she committed to this. Any way she went she would be giving something up, but she didn’t want to make an uneducated decision.
The queen swirled her spicy drink and then spoke.
“I thought for sure your first question would be about domains…and soul stats are less well defined than the rest. I’d say common sense describes a third affinity as not being worth it…but common sense also says you shouldn’t interfere in another’s path.” Popping a chunk of meat into her mouth the woman sat for another moment and then asked her own question.
“What do you know about the soul?”.
…
----------------------------------------
---James---
James was enthralled with the food working his way down the line silently with Troy. The two grabbed a chunk from the same section, made eye contact, gave each other a slight nod and then popped the chunk in their mouth.
Spicy hot – despite mentioning fire mana – was simply a slightly spicy meatball. It tasted like steak marinated in hot sauce and honey.
Spicy spike was exactly as the barkeeper described. A ‘sharp’ taste that almost felt like James was sliding razor blades down his throat. He was confident he had never tried this flavour before in his life – his tongue shouldn’t have the taste buds to explain this and yet he still felt the slicing slip of the meat across his tongue.
'Spicy beat' was the bludgeoning damage type – a soft ache like a bruise being pressed or a sore muscle being stretched out the day after a heavy workout. Despite how it sounded it was a good ache – almost addictive and James found himself reaching for a second before continuing.
Spicy death was a sour cloying fizz. The closet way James could describe the new flavour was as if kimchi had been made into pop rocks that made your tongue numb. He was definitely not a fan of that variant – it killed his tastebuds for a bit causing everything he ate to taste bland.
Spicy light was subtly different from spicy hot somehow both softer and deeper with its ‘pure’ burn. Spicy dark sunk through his body while barely damaging him – feeling like the food was dropping down through his stomach and out his legs. Spicy life could barely be called a spicy flavour – the ‘damage’ of life mana healed his mouth completely. It did act as a sort of pallet cleanser, completely wiping the aftertaste of spicy death as it flowed across his tongue and reset his taste buds…so that was a plus.
Spicy cold had a slightly similar vibe to actual cold food as well as mint gum without the taste of mint. Like the meat was covered in mint ice cream minus mint…despite being hard to describe perfectly, it was the most mundane flavour besides spicy hot.
Spicy void was stronger than spicy death but less sour and more ominous tasting as if the meat was melting the inside of James’s mouth. He needed to flip to a life chunk to fix his taste buds again but it was definitely an experience.
James was dimly aware of the second platter of meatballs coming out – this time piled high and strong enough each hurt to eat. The bludgeoning damage shifted from a slight ache to feeling like it was physically bashing itself around the inside of his mouth, the heat from the fire damage felt like the inside of his mouth was burning.
He continued flipping between stuff at a steady pace. Dimly James was aware he was eating the most of everyone save maybe the queen but…it was an experience.
Having tasted all the flavours James would have to say bludgeoning and piercing damage were his two favorites – it couldn’t just be his own affinity reaching out to them they felt the most unique and the most memorable. I wonder if I can buy some of those two spices for my spice kit?
Continuing to eat but slowing down James began paying more attention to the conversation. A lot of information was being dropped beside him and he was thankful he didn’t have to be the one asking all the questions.
…
----------------------------------------
---Maddy---
Maddy finished describing a clipped version of her time as a spirit – she left out the necromancer and how she got back her body but described the way she had felt and used magic. As she spoke the queen seemed surprised and then calm continuing to listen to Maddy’s explanation.
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“I assume the rest of your story has to do with whatever artifact you used to revive? That’s enough for me.” Tapping her fingers slightly the queen spoke again.
“The soul is your magical body. That’s it. Body stats increase your physical bodies strength speed and power and soul stats increase your souls strength speed and power. The most common use of the soul is astral projection. An ability some mages use to separate their soul temporarily from their body. Soul defense is how long your soul can survive the depths of the astral and increases in a curve based on how many points you have towards it. Soul speed is roughly a measure of how much your soul can move itself unaided by external forces and soul power is roughly a measure of how much your soul can do unaided by external forces.
"Your soul is not your mind – your mind can rest in either your body or soul and through certain magics, if the places your mind rest in your body is compromised, your mind can briefly rest in your soul until your brain is healed once again.” Tapping her finger slightly as if making up her mind the woman continued. “Depending on your domain, the exact interaction your magic has with your soul may shift the effects of soul stats drastically. It's often better to come to a description of them on your own than being described it by another. More accurately it’s the least understood aspect of you and thus the part you can imagine does the most with your imagination changing what it actually does. You seem to have a firm understanding with no weird interactions so its safe enough to tell you but keep in mind there are those who heavily lean into soul magic with a ton of interactions” The queen finished her explanation.
Maddy nodded to herself and tried to think. If the soul didn’t have a massive link to magic – if it wasn’t something like the size of her mana pool then…it might be worth thinking about dropping.
“Now, I believe you also want to know about domains?” The woman asked staring at Maddy and then slowly spinning to view everyone else before returning to her. “There's a reason most teachers will only tell their students about their domains when they are already crystallized. Contradictory information can be detrimental to your path if you aren’t sure of it.” Maddy paused her mind flickering to the dungeon’s ‘curse’ before nodding.
“I’m sure I want to know,” Maddy began.
“I mean it. Everyone, if you aren’t certain of your path, an honest description of domains can ruin you,” The queen's eyes lingered an awful while on James before he nodded and she continued.
“Alright, in that case I’ll drop it. It doesn’t cost me anything and you’ve made your choices.” The queen began.
“Your domain is your truth. It is the unique part of you and changes between person to person. Every single human and most monsters have a domain but when we speak of domains we normally refer to crystalized domains.” The queen took a bite and stared about seeming to enjoy how much attention the group was paying her.
“Your domain’s reaches are a mixture between how far you can sense and how far you can effect. That means if you stand on top of a mountain and look far away your domain will blanket the side of the mountain you can see, while not covering the part behind your back…its not a sphere as some like to imagine and it shifts and shrinks depending on your spells and location. The strength of the domain stretching as far as you can see will fade based on how much range your spells have-“
Pausing as if remembering not everyone at the table was a mage the queen backpedaled slightly “Or so some domains work. A warrior often has an internal domain that barely breaks the surface of their skin but a combination of perception and power is a good description for mages like myself.”
The queen stared at her empty drink sadly then leaned back< her arms wrapping around the booth behind her as she stared up towards the ceiling.
“Domains have a lot of rules and nuances, but in short they are they way magic works for you. They are the way you ‘believe magic works for you’ along with ‘the way all magic works’ in your vicinity due to that belief. Only the strong crystalize their domains and that’s the part that’s important. Once your domain crystalizes It's set. The rules you believe cannot bend and shift anymore. You can grow stronger building upon what you have but you can never change your deepest truths. The taboo of telling the young of crystalized domains is it can either shake their foundation – knowing that the ways they believe magic to work is personalized and don’t necessarily match how it works for others can lead some to stop believing in their own magic. The other potential problem is for those who wish to artificially add stuff to their domain before crystallizing it. Faking belief for power or tricking themselves into adding rules to their magic can and has given strength before...but also results in brittle domains forged from lies. A proper crystalized domain is diamond. A fake domain is little more than glass.”
The queen accepted her second glass in silence – somehow she had ordered without notifying anyone. Either that or ‘Earl’ just knew she was out and brought her a second drink to make up for it.
Maddy looked over and asked for a life drink before Earl turned away. He nodded at her – also accepting orders from James and Troy for their own spiked drinks.
The queen continued. “So, while I could describe understandings of how domains actually work, you’ll have to keep in mind they might function differently for you. In case your understanding is different please pretend my description is fake – at least until your own domain finishes crystalizing. My own understanding of how domains are formed is that every single cast of a spell you do leaves something behind. Even when a spell is completely spent, your mana remains. The intent of your concepts break apart but stay in the surroundings. That is what I believe a domain is. All your personal spent magic soaking into the environment around you. That inert mana continues to contain your abilities – continues to link to the concepts you used to cast it and reaches out to help your new spells complete. For mobile domains, it follows you around like a pet seeking to be close to its owner or spreads out to try and get your attention in places you can see.”
The queen laughed as she continued.
“Going forward, domains can overlap completely with each other. You can stand beside someone with a similar domain without even noticing it – both your magics functioning normally as your understandings don’t contradict one another.”
Waving her hand the queen created two lumpy chunks of glass and pushed them together no problem. It wasn’t an illusion. The queen really conjured the glass – she must not have a light affinity for illusion work.
“The other case is with contradictory domains. If two people have understandings of the world that are completely different from one another. If two mages have spells that run off completely different beliefs of what magic is…then their domains fight each other. Non crystalized domains mush together in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways while a crystallized domain always crushes and suppresses the mushy ones. Two crystallized domains on the other hand actively crash – often with a visual effect. A wall between the two, a secondary battle between two environments…and just as there are an unlimited number of domains the way these crashes happen shifts drastically between users. Vastly more powerful mages can often suppress weaker mages even if both are crystalized but you'll find its next to impossible for a mage to effect a warrior's domain with any real effort” The queen continued.
Creating a few different blobby shapes of glass, the queen shoved them together randomly causing cracks to form or bits to sink into each other or wrap around like an ameba.
“I think I remember hearing far on the other side of the badlands there is a massive domain that affects your magic in really strange ways. I haven’t braved that crossing but you hear rumors…anyways. That’s the main part of this description. Practically for a mage, your domain is the area you can use magic and with a good understanding of it you can manipulate the domain itself. For a warrior your domain usually forms much faster – I see two of you already have a domain nearly fully settled – and all you have to know is it will prevent hostile or foreign magic from affecting your body easily…No one should be able to stop your heart just by looking at you or transform your flesh into stone or anything dangerous like that.”
Turning to Maddy she continued.
“As a mage your domain is much much bigger than a warrior but also more diffuse. The biggest tool you have for turning that around is called domain definement and that is where you use a spell actively trying to interact with your domain. The warrior version is avatar embodiment and works similarly. The idea is to make an environment that helps your spells and tries to break or weaken the spells of an opponent. As soon as you do and with the right intent your domain will 'be' that environment. How can I best describe it…domain spells follow a similar trend to the other common parts of magic. As an overview…
“Well for elements, literally anything can be an element but simple physical damaging ideas are the best. A type of damage that exists in nature and one that effects the type of creature or similar you want to use magic against. You obviously already know what the strongest element foundations are, as none of you have anything weird and two of you have multiple elements.
“For concepts, once again literally anything can be a concept and there’s a much wider range of ideals. Typically the best concepts are all physical ideas and objects or simple goals. A sword concept, an armour concept or a protective one, a bolt, a set of chains or more general an idea of restraining something, an animal. Stuff like that.
“For domains, once again a domain can be anything. I’ve heard of a warrior or two having a sword domain with their entire domain contained within their blade…In general most mage domains are an environment, and most warrior domains are an ideal for a person. For example, a knight domain or king domain complete with strengths and weaknesses and innate abilities from the concepts infused into their magic. Anyways, even though anything can be a domain there’s a trend. A common sense ideal that the majority of properly made domains follow. Most defined domains for mages contain an environment. For example, a forest. Oh! That’s a good comparison. An okay element might be wood – even if wood damage isn't very strong. An okay concept might be a tree and an okay domain might be a forest.” The queen seemed excited by that comparison, happy with herself.
“My own domain is this city. I’ve made it so that the infrastructure itself is my defined domain using proper weakness engineering and I’m confident it could survive even a dragon's attack unharmed. The flip side of course is that I cannot leave. I’m committing to this city with my life – and upon my death the domain should stay protecting my people long after I’m gone. After all, its my mana – even if its already spent. As long as my domain sticks around, the spells should continue running indefinitely.
"My understanding of domains being the used up inert spell chunks means it should stick around and because my domains crystalized it shouldn’t fade away and spread into the surroundings. Quite a few mages like to stay far away from other mages – the common idea of a wizard tower is just a mage wanting to stay far away from others who might interfere with their own spells.” Finishing her explanation, the queen trailed off as if she had nothing more to say.
“How do you crystalize your domain? And how do you use a domain to fight against a spell you don’t want?” Maddy asked prodding the queen to continue.
“Domain crystallization is a personal wishy washy thing. I told you how I figured out how domains work right? As soon as I figured that out, I just cast a bunch of wasteful spells purposefully trying to soak my environment until it crystalized.
“In terms of domain fights…The easiest way is to believe a method of magic to be impossible and then crystalize that understanding. If you don’t believe magic can do something and then you come across someone who believes it can your domains will conflict with a slight defenders advantage keeping you protected from that. Me telling you that and you purposefully trying to engineer that of course breaks that way of protecting yourself from a type of magic you already know exists or at the very least makes it a weak method.
“The other way is to believe that all magic – even a magic you don’t understand – has a weakness and way for you to beat it. Crystalize the understanding that even if you are hit by some unknown spell or domain effect, you can always do something to break it even if you don’t know what it is. That belief is the utter truth of magic after all, so affirming it as true and infusing that into your domain will help you take advantage of it. All you need then is to shrug off any domain impression and treat the foreign magic how you understand magic to work. You could work it into a domain definement or not it doesn't matter.”
“Okay, I have another question. What is weakness engineering? You mentioned something similar when I asked about the ground being see-through” Maddy started.
The queen looked over at the diminishing pile of food before turning back to her.
“Is that your last question? Technically you haven’t beaten the dungeon so I don’t want to spend the whole day here. I’m hoping to leave by the time the food is done, and three questions seems like a good number. Considering you’ve had two of the questions, does anyone else have something they would prefer me to go over? You all helped delve the dungeon?”
The rest of the table jumped slightly at being called out then after thinking for a second shook their head or said they were fine.
“Alright then. To answer your question, weakness engineering is a simple concept with a massive amount of work being put into exactly how to take advantage of it. Some call it 'balance' some call it 'mana playing fair'. It’s a base rule of magic like how concepts work but…how much focus you spend on it is entirely up to you. Weakness engineering is tied into your concepts and goals and based on how much you focus on it can sink into your domain – if you use it too early or with too little thought for the future you may regret it. Alternatively if you know exactly what you want from life, getting some good practice in it before you crystalize your domain into permenance will help you far into the future.
“The base idea is that constraints provide power and all magic has strengths and weaknesses. Knowing this fact, by purposefully picking and choosing your weakness you can improve your strengths. It touches upon true magic which I’ve heard only a whisper or two of and is the building block upon which high spells run.
"In general the more you try to do with a single spell the worse it will be unless you spent an equal amount of effort improving all the individual components and even then over engineered spells are not always stronger or more effective. The only way to make a perfect defense is to poke holes in it as contradictory as that sounds.”
The queen seemed much more excited by the current topic than the previous ones.
“Slimes are the earliest example of this truth. They are perfectly defended against all but a certain type of attack. Slimes are also mindless, relatively situationally weak monsters but they prove the base concept. The base rule of magic and reality you can actively take advantage of.
“So. When you use weakness engineering you make a conscious decision to weaken your spell in a way you don’t care about. As soon as you do this, you strengthen the parts you do care about…but because weakness engineering is a more fundamental truth of magic, you lose a lot of its benefits as soon as you try and cheat it. Making a spell that defends against all physical attacks for example but allows everything else through…that spell will have a huge amount of strength. Same with one that lets physical attacks through but no non physical ones. Keep in mind having both spells within easy access will weaken them slightly but just the fact that they are separate will keep them incredibly strong anyways.
“Attempting to cast both spells and layer them into a so called ‘perfect defense’ is what I call cheating however. The magic will understand what you are doing and weaken to the point of making a single relatively strong shield that’s far far from the perfect shield you would have otherwise. A shield that defends in one direction is stronger than one that defends in all directions… as is one you have to focus on to maintain vs one that can be deployed automatically. That doesn’t mean you should always use a shield wall instead of a dome, it just means you should keep it in mind when designing a spell.
“Keep in mind all spells have strengths and weaknesses no matter what you do. All weakness engineering is, is a way of letting you 'choose' what those strengths and weaknesses are instead of leaving it up to fate.”
Maddy flinched slightly causing the queen to stop and eye her then nod in understanding.
“Turn of phrase sorry, you are probably still traumatized from the dungeon. That’s the idea behind it anyways. The city floor has a designed weakness in that its right above a massive monster nest and is specifically weak to those monsters. Because of that contrived situation, its strong enough to hold thousands of houses and people and nearly indestructible by common means. The geas I’ve pushed through the population weakens that slightly… but because the chance is there – because light can pass through the ground and because its 'technically possible' to break the safety and trigger the trap below, the majority of the strength remains.
“Another example is a good friend of mine. She made it so her magic wouldn’t hurt children or any she deemed innocent. It bites her every once in a while when she comes across a monster cub close enough for her magic to consider them exempt but…she’s never said she regretted her choices. That’s a weakness she’s willing to take on for the sake of all her magic being slightly stronger. It does mean she can indiscriminately attack groups while sparing anyone she would want to spare which is a useful side effect.
“Anyways, I think that’s a good time to wrap things up. I have lots of work to do after all.” Waving her arm all over the place randomly the queen finished up. She then gestured indicating everyone on her side should scoot and let her out – sliding out in a few dashes and jumping up…Maddy found it hard to imagine what the woman even did for work when she acted like this.
Stumbling out of the booth and onto a disk of blue, the queen spun lazily and began floating towards the door. “If you beat more of the dungeon I’ll answer more questions but I don’t know of anything else you would need to know. Thanks again for strengthening the town I hope my debt has been repaid and I hope you continue.”
Maddy watched her go and took a swig of her life drink, swirling the liquid around her mouth as she thought. It felt like she was finally learning of the last major rules of magic. Despite all her warnings about belief and her understanding not being the one truth, everything the queen had said had made sense. All she needed to do now was figure out how much of that was the fundamental truth and how much of it was simply the woman’s understanding.