Evelyn was tired. It had been a long day of discovering mysteries made by the spirit, learning mana manipulation and helping a boy missing his arm. But now, having done all that, she was finally standing outside of the city gates, ready to give a heck of a lot blood for a good feast. Evelyn stepped through the city gate, knife ready in hand, and the anger of her goddess crashed upon her shoulders.
Evelyn couldn't breathe, she couldn't blink or even move her eyes under Valeria's wrath. Evelyn was only allowed to take a breath after the road itself threw Evelyn back out of the gate in a wave.
It took a moment for Evelyn to gather herself and try again. But the road pushed her out again and again, each time more forcefully than the last. Evelyn gave up after five tries, feeling hungrier than she ever remembered being. After some thought, Evelyn decided to go to one of the city's temples. The buildings were half outside the city, so maybe she could ask a cleric for food there.
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I was frozen still out of shock, with nothing moving more than an election was wide. I had just been minding my business, inscribing simplistic designs on the inside walls of my tower for my carbon symbol project, and then I felt something odd through Testy's carbon circle. Testy had entered an area with a much higher density of magic. Then Testy seemed to suck that magic in through the tattoo, except that didn't seem right. No, instead something else was pushing magic through the tattoo, giving slight amounts of the magic to me. Then I could feel all the magic from around the tattoo pull away, just moments before Testy went flying.
The same process repeated another four times, except that whatever entity controlled the magic made sure it didn't even graze the carbon spheres. The entity didn't seem to like losing its magic, which was completely understandable. I couldn't be entirely sure, but I was pretty sure that Testy had just found another entity like I was, a being of magic. And I wasn't even sure if I wanted to steal all its magic for myself, or try and talk to it and make a friend.
Testy didn't seem to be going back in the maybe magic being's domain, so I went back to designing my symbols. I was going for something that looked like runes, but the meaning of each symbol should be at least half obvious from its shape.
The symbol for lightning for example was a simple typical three line bolt, while the symbol for fire that I'd come up with, was three thick curved lines next to each other, symbolizing three toungs of fire. I was planning on using three lines for each of the different effect symbols, four for the sensory ones, and the logic symbols would be the same ones as were used on earth. Then lines could be used to connect them all together, and voila, a system that used what I called magic to create magic items and spells straight out of a story book.
If someone wanted to have flamethrowers for hands, I could make that possible, and then they could sacrifice their magic to me whenever they wanted to shoot fire. It would be the perfect win win situation where everyone involved gets more magic.
I decided the dozen runes I now had were enough. There was the fire one, where if someone were to push magic through, I would use that magic to heat the air around the symbol and rearrange a few molecules to make fire. The electricity one I would just move electrons from one place to another, creating a static charge, and then let them snap into place through lightning. Then there was water, for which I'd simply gather the water in the air, and turn the air itself into water. Basically the same thing went for earth. Ice was just making the area around the symbol very cold. Force, or wind did basically the same thing Testy's circle tattoo did, meaning push whatever was Infront of it away. The rest of the symbols I had come up with so far were the logic gates, except for the NOT gate, I wasn't entirely sure how I could do that in a way that was useful to me. And finally, I had a single sensory symbol, a simple circle with three other interlaced circles in it. It would work essentially as a button, something pushes magic through it, then I use that magic to do whatever the symbols that the button symbol was connected to tell me to do. My inner explanation might be a bit haptic, but the idea was there. The Button symbol could be connected to the fire and force symbols for example, and would cause fire to be pushed away from them. The carbon symbol user could use it to activate multiple symbols simultaneously.
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The plan was for these symbols to be found in the second floor of the tower, which I hadn't started construction on yet, but I had many amazing plans. Like making it a giant labyrinth full of pitfalls and other traps. The first floor would also need more rooms, one of which could be a staircase leading to the second floor. Even so, with all my plans, I felt that it was missing something important. My tower was starting to remind me of something from my past life, and I couldn't help but feel that I should make it more similar to whatever it was that I kept on almost remembering. The thought kept bugging my mind the entire rest of the day.
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"What do you mean you won't give me food?" Evelyn shouted out of pure frustration to the cleric. It was the fourth cleric Evelyn had asked for food, and every time they had ended up in a circular argument.
"You told me yourself, Valeria herself has banned you from even stepping foot in Valessa. How can you expect her servants to go against her will by giving you the food she refuses to give?" The cleric answered calmly.
"But I am a citizen, I've been coming here every day without problem, I've given my sacrifice, and I've been given food in return. Why should today be any different? Can't you just please give me food?"
"I deeply apologize, but you clearly no longer are a citizen. You are unprotected by the law, and as such I have no qualms about sacrificing your life to Valeria. Please leave before you infuriate me enough to actually consider it."
From the clerics expression it was clear that he wouldn't actually sacrifice Evelyn any time soon, but it was a scary thought. Realizing that she could be killed without any legal repercussions by literally anyone, definitely didn't ease Evelyn's starved self. Then came the realization that Evelyn didn't have anything to eat, nor any money to buy food. Audrey and Michelle might be willing to feed her for the considerable future, but Evelyn didn't want to be a burden. No, instead Evelyn would have to find a source of income outside of the city.
Evelyn paced back down the road towards her village with a grumbling stomach. She didn't even bother to go the long way around the spirits domain, her life was already as good as over since she would have to take on a boring normal job. She passed the spirits tower, glared at it since it was all probably its fault, and made her way to the village.
It was well in the evening when Audrey opened the door to a teary eyed Evelyn with a grumbling stomach.
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It popped in my mind as I was building the second floor of my tower. I had finished the first floor before that, deciding to make the labyrinth there instead of the second floor. It would still work as the test of worthiness, and had the stone ring puzzle at the center of it. The puzzle would open a door that leads to the altar room. In the altar room, there was as a new door, that opened to yet another room with a spiral staircase to the second floor.
At first the second floor was more labyrinth, but with more puzzles in it. There was stuff like shoot the target to lower the bridge over the spikes, and light the correct torches to open a secret pathway. That was when it popped in my mind, the thing that I constantly kept almost remembering. My tower reminded me of dungeons from videogames. And the single thing every single dungeon ever had, was combat. And loot drops.
My carbon symbols, or runes, I liked the word runes better, were already a sort of loot, though a few precious gems and gold wouldn't harm anyone, if I could just figure gold out. But I didn't have any sort of combat at all in my tower, and combat was the perfect use of my runes. As for how I could create combat scenarios, I wasn't entirely sure. Maybe I could bring dangerous animals in my tower, or duplicate and modify them to be even more dangerous. I liked that idea, perhaps I could give them their own runes to use, and make all sorts of magic animals.
There also was the possibility of making golems, simple or complex constructs that I would personally control and fight with. Maybe I should go with that idea for now, and work on using animals as a side project. I wouldn't want to be controlling thousands of golems simultaneously if my tower ever grows large enough.
I settled on a simple design for my first golem. A floating stone torso with a salt heart visible at the center, and floating fists that whaled around. I would move it around, attacking whomever, until the salt heart was destroyed, which is when I'd let the golem fall to the ground, dead. The salt heart would also work as loot. I really hoped salt was worth something.
With the design done, I made dozens of copies all over the second floor labyrinth.