Sign: Snake
Buffs: Serpent’s Kiss (Romance twice as easy)
Debuffs: Curse of the Unspecified (Start the game with no gender, no name, and no other identifying feature)
EXP: 1,258
Alchemy
Coagula (LVL 1, 24 SKP)
Solvé (LVL 0, 29 SKP)
Theoria (LVL 1, 13 SKP)
Botany
Sowing (LVL 0, 5 SKP)
Tending (LVL 0, 53 SKP) Ready to level up!
?
Cooking
Fire (LVL 1, 28 SKP)
Water (LVL 0, 24 SKP)
?
Homesteading
Fire Tending (LVL 0, 7 SKP)
Tidying (LVL 1, 84 SKP)
?
Speech
Logic (LVL 1, 13 SKP)
Linguistics (LVL 0, 31 SKP) Ready to level up!
Cajoling (LVL 0, 10 SKP)
Total SKP: 344
Inventory:
Auros: 0
Cards of Destiny: 5 of ?? Discovered
Names: 4
Evengeline, The Pure Snow (Holly)
Vitas, The Wind Thief (Sparrow)
Gillygad, The Stiched-Up Wonder (Pitchfork)
Zinia, The Serpent’s Caress (Snake)
Passive Skills:
(Theoria LVL 1) Pure Substances: Some metals are especially luminous. Some hands are more precise than others. These hands shall become sharpened scalpels, made of the most luminous Silver. Higher maximum Quality points are possible for all potions.
(Coagula LVL 1) Coalescing Membranes: The membranes of the parts which make up the whole shall be in accordance. Ingredients combine more smoothly, producing higher quality potions.
(Fire LVL 1) Ignited: The Elemental branch of magic lends this Sorcerer the ability to cook faster using fire. Prepare fried or baked meals twice as quickly. Get burnt less.
(Tidying LVL 1) Dirt Buster: The magical branch of Purification lends this Sorcerer the ability to ‘Bust Dirt.’ Dust and grime accumulate at an infinitesimally slow rate on objects you have cleaned.
(Logic LVL 1) Rhetoric: The magical branch of Entreatment lends this Sorcerer the ability of heightened ‘Rhetoric.’ The structure of your arguments is smooth, regular, and orthogonal. Spirits and people are more likely to agree with you.
Spells:
Wild and Overwhelming Growth (LVL 1) Accelerate the growth of plants and fungi. Enchanted plants grow ten times faster (Overwhelming Influence), BUT enchanted plants sometimes disregard their original form.
Esteemed Sorcerers of the jury, exhibit number one is what the Signs, the misinformed, simple, dead souls, envied. Look at what crawls from the shadows.
I wanted to read Ma Chère quickly to see if I could find a spell, but the words took a slow meandering path through my brain. Unlike the pummeling passages of the GREEN and the RED, which carried a savage velocity, I could only read Ma Chère at a tottering pace, savoring each letter. I had only read ten pages, and felt exhausted and delighted.
I don’t know why I should have had any shameful feelings about it. It was certainly written with a flair for style and prose, but as I slowly made my way through the beginning of the story, I found it quite straightforward and innocent.
It was written by a Master Enchanter, named Gigert Giger. Apparently, the book was his written confession for a trial, although I wasn’t sure why Mr. Giger would be on trial.
Gigert lived alone most of his life, and as he describes it:
The art of keeping human company was always an elusive and foreign concept to my person. I never managed to grasp it. But loneliness does not excuse incompetence, and as I waned in years, the solitude sat in my throat like a river rock. How to dislodge?
So Gigert applied his Art to the task. He enchanted everything in his home, from the broom to the candlesticks, from the carpets to the chimney. He went on at length about this magical place, his home, which had become like a living organism.
And indeed, esteemed jury, the house breathed with a stuttering breath of its own. Oh, of course, in the beginning, the plates knocked against the sink and broke, and the broom got sidetracked by the moving carpet. But months and months passed, and the still things enchanted into movement began to fall into a rhythm. A dance was born in my house. The candles gave way to the forks when necessary. The books only crawled from the shelves when it was time. The house got used to life, and like a newborn deer, it stood on its spindly legs and learned to walk in a regular pattern.
I was delighted. And curious.
This is how the idea took root.
The house, it was a crude thing, but the way it hummed with energy, the way which the enchanted objects interacted with each other, made me think that it had almost, almost, become like a living thing.
So, then, you may ask, could one enchant life, genuine life, into a still thing?
I hear the cries of the jury now, as I write these recollections in my cell: no, not possible. Life is not something one can bring forth through enchantment.
And why not? As the chorus no doubt will sound: enchantment is not genuine life! Enchantment only gives a still thing the ability to move!
But yet we enchant plants, and surely no one argues that a plant is living?
The chorus again: that which has life retains it. That which has no life does not spark it. Such are the rules.
Ah, but I have more questions, and the answers get trickier and trickier by the line. I shall not bore you, dear Sorcerers of the jury, with my rendition of a Socratic debate. Although, allow me one last question:
Who are we, (you and I, young Sorcerer, your nose barely an inch from these living pages of my life), who are we if not mounds of fleshy clay enchanted into Being, staggering and bumping into each other like the enchanted teacups in my pantry, unaware of our mystical origin. Have we always possessed our life? If so, then where was your life before you were born? And where shall it be after you perish?
This part of the book gave me pause. I had been so engrossed in it that the words wound themselves around my head, and I was living in the story with Gigert Giger. When he posed the rhetorical question, I sincerely gave it thought. What are we, indeed, Giger?
So, spurred by his success of the magical house, Gigert Giger decided to take enchanting a step further.
Being alone in his older years, he wished for a singular companion to spend it with. He complained that although his house was in a sense living, it could not replace the hollow in his heart that searched for a friendly word and a kind smile.
My own face stretched into a knowing grin as I read his words. I, too, wanted that.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
So, Mr. Giger decided he would make himself a companion.
I poured through books, I devoured volumes. The old texts, the feathered pages falling apart like decaying birds, proved useless, one after another. But all were consumed in the acid pit of my brain. I would find a way.
It wasn’t until I came across The Chymical Wedding that I tasted the first spoonful of success. It was an abstract work, barely legible and fiendishly difficult to comprehend. But the old Rosicrucian mystic, who purported to be the author, described a way in which life, (genuine life young Sorcerer!) can be sparked in a thing which was still.
Before I progress into the sordid affair which became my experiment, I shall take a moment to address the young Sorcerer, who no doubt is eager for the first lick of the sweet succor which is the Magical Art.
I blinked as I read the words. In an odd way, it almost felt like Mr. Giger was addressing me. I kept reading. What followed was a riddle, and as I read the first words, a piece of parchment materialized in my hands.
I placed Ma Chère down and looked at the new page.
The Font Eternal
To arrange a bath, the following items must be present:
Earrings
Candle
Hair Lock
Earth-Jar
Rosebud
They must be placed around the bath in a specific order, in places 1 through 5, so that they follow the rules. There may be more than one possible order. Only one item can occupy each spot.
[https://i.imgur.com/966vFau.jpg]
Here are the rules for placing the items:
The candle must go in spot 1.
The rosebud cannot be next to the candle.
The hairlock is next to the earth-jar.
The earrings are next to the candle.
The hairlock must be in an even spot.
Where shall the items be placed?
I scanned the riddle, and began working out my solution.
I numbered five spots, keeping in mind that spot 1 and spot five, according to the picture, are next to each other.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The candle must go in spot 1.
I wrote the candle into spot 1.
1.Candle
2.
3.
4.
5.
The rosebud cannot be next to the candle.
I had to remember, looking at the picture, that spots 2 and 5 are next to spot 1, since the spots are arranged in a circle. So, rosebud had to be in either spots 3 or 4, to avoid being next to candle in spot 1.
1.Candle
2.
3.Rosebud/?
4.Rosebud/?
5.
The hairlock is next to the earth-jar.
The hairlock and earth-jar can occupy any spots 2-5 as long as they’re next to each other.
1.Candle
2.Hairlock/Earth-jar/?
3.Rosebud/Hairlock/Earth-jar/?
4.Rosebud/Hairlock/Earth-jar/?
5.Hairlock/Earth-jar/?
The earrings are next to the candle.
The earrings must be in spot 2 or 5 to be next to the candle.
1.Candle
2.Hairlock/Earth-jar/Earrings/?
3.Rosebud/Hairlock/Earth-jar/?
4.Rosebud/Hairlock/Earth-jar/?
5.Hairlock/Earth-jar/Earrings/?
The hairlock must be in an even spot.
If the hairlock had to be in an even spot, it could only be in spot 2 or 4.
1.Candle
2.Hairlock/Earth-jar/Earrings/?
3.Rosebud/Earth-jar/?
4.Rosebud/Hairlock/Earth-jar/?
5.Earth-jar/Earrings/?
One of the prior rules stated that hairlock and earth-jar had to be next to each other. If hairlock was in spot 2, earth-jar had to be in spot 3. But if hairlock was in spot 4, earth-jar could be in spots 3 or 5.
I eliminated earth-jar out of spot 2 and spot 4.
1.Candle
2.Hairlock/Earrings
3.Rosebud/Earth-jar
4.Rosebud/Hairlock
5.Earth-jar/Earrings
I read back to the first part of the riddle’s instructions: There may be more than one possible order.
So, the question, as I saw it, was whether the hairlock was in spot 2 or 4.
If it was in spot 2, that meant that earth-jar had to be in spot 3 because they had to be next to each other. That left only rosebud in spot 4, then earrings in spot 5.
I came to my first possible solution:
1.Candle
2.Hairlock
3.Earth-jar
4.Rosebud
5.Earrings
Conversely, if the hairlock was in spot 4, the rosebud had to be in spot 3 according to the second rule: The rosebud cannot be next to the candle.
1.Candle
2.Earrings
3.Rosebud
4.Hairlock
5.Earth-jar/Earrings
Of course, then earth-jar had to be spot 5 and earrings in spot 2. Here is the second possible solution:
1.Candle
2.Earrings
3.Rosebud
4.Hairlock
5.Earth-jar
After I had figured out the riddle, I got the message I expected, and something else which I didn’t.
Riddle: What Climbs Out Of The Bath? (Aspirant Difficulty)
Complete!
30 EXP
10 Skill Points to Logic (Speech)
10 Skill Points to Linguistics (Speech)
10 Skill Points to Theoria (Alchemy)
Then:
[https://i.imgur.com/6gqr91d.jpg]
New Entry for Old Toad’s Grimoire!
Lesser Baptism, Level 1 (Enchantment) Spell
Another enchantment spell! I suppose I should have realized that would be the result. I was, after all, reading Ma Chère, which was written by a Master Enchanter. It’s no wonder the riddle which I had found in the book would translate into a new spell!
I immediately opened Old Toad’s and found the new spell:
Lesser Baptism, Level 1 (Enchantment) Spell
Create life in a still thing.
Spend 100 EXP to Align and Unlock?
I was very eager to unlock the spell and try it out, but I had made myself a promise.
The Sorceress had told me to research all the Signs before beginning work with the other Grimoires. When I had aligned my first spell, Growth, I could not align the spell to Signs which I knew nothing about.
I regretfully closed the entry for my new spell, tucked Ma Chère under my pillow, and trudged to the library. I did not get very far into Gigert Giger’s book, but I had spent a long time reading it. The pages of Ma Chère seemed to condense time, and it took me all evening just to get through a dozen pages.
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It was already dark.
I found First Names again in the library and opened to the dog-eared page where I had marked my progress. The book detailed the existence of three signs: Snake, Oak and Wheel. I had already read up on Snake and Oak, and now it was time to cross another Sign off my list.
Unlike Zinia and Aubershin, (the patrons of Snake and Oak), no one had any historical record of a person named Teresto existing. And, as far as history stretched, Teresto was always Patron of Wheel. This made the Patron unique among the other Signs and raised many questions. Was Teresto ever a person? Could a non-human spirit occupy and be Patron to a Sign? The editors of the book had no answers for these, but plenty of vague conjectures.
I gleaned from the book that Teresto was in charge of rather disparate subjects. Fate, time, bargains, and questions were Teresto’s specialty.
Another fact I learned about Teresto is that there are no alchemical potions that require the speaking of his Name. I frowned at this. In my opinion, it lowered the usefulness of learning about Wheel. I was sure to brew more potions, and I needed all the help I could get. But I plowed on regardless.
It seemed that most Sorcerers sought Teresto for only one of his specialties, Questions. But, Teresto was not interested in answering mundane and commonplace questions such as ‘Where is the treasure buried?’ or ‘Does she love me back?’
Instead, the Patron of Wheel should be sought for more existential questions. One Sorcerer reported success in contacting Wheel (another facet of Teresto was that he was not easy to get a hold of), and posed the following question to him:
Most honored guardian of the crossroads, where does life come from?
According to said Sorcerer, Teresto fetched a box from his heavy cart, and opened it before Sorcerer’s eyes. When looking at the shining thing within the box, the Sorcerer claimed to understand much more than his crudely worded question warranted. He understood why the stars moved, and why the oceans swelled, and why mothers sang to newborns, but then…
When Teresto shut the box again, the understanding which the Sorcerer grasped so easily looking inside the box vanished out of his head, and he could not recall any of it later.
Well, what good was that, I thought. If I had gone through all the trouble to seek out this Teresto guy for a question, I would be fairly annoyed if the answer I learned immediately disappeared.
I closed the book and yawned. I tried to feel out the atmosphere of the evening gloom. Was the Patron of Wheel lurking in the shadows?
I felt nothing. This was not altogether surprising, since it was mentioned many times that Teresto does not manifest easily on the mortal plane.
I stretched out of the armchair, and went to bed, deciding that sleep was more important to me than reading further about a Sign which would surely not prove very useful.
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