The next morning Liam woke up in bed with Amarie being, of all things, the little spoon.
Turning around he threw an arm around her, hugging her tight and causing her to twitch in her sleep. A moment later she opened her eyes wide, looking around the room nearly with panic, until she realized where she was and calmed down.
“Morning’;” she mumbled, already beginning to get up, to Liam’s great sadness. He would’ve rather stayed in bed a while more but he knew perfectly well there was work to do.
Then he remembered the laboratory had exploded the day prior and realized that there probably wouldn’t be much to work with. Surprisingly most of the glassware had survived, what with it being made from dwarven volcanic glass (apparently the sands around the Arborges Mountains, especially near the Burntear volcano, were black and filled with minerals that the crafty smaller folk somehow managed to turn into highly resistant glass) enchanted with some of the best enchantments money could buy (that wouldn’t interfere with the reactions happening inside the glassware, because that was a thing, as Sigmund had shown him when they’d started his training). Most of the things made out of metal though hadn’t survived the explosion, being bent or melted by the mixture of wild magic and chemical substances that had spilled from their containers. Because, again, mana had the ability to enhance pretty much anything it came in contact with… in very unpredictable ways.
“Morning,” he said back with a smile, which was mirrored back once her groggy eyes noticed it.
Her hand reached up to his neck and gingerly removed the necklace he wore each night to stop his nightmares, causing his mind to slowly start coming back.
“Breakfast?” asked Amarie.
“Breakfast,” he answered.
They left the room at the same time. A big mistake, because Sigmund saw them.
The lizardman, at first, looked extremely confused, then his eyes began getting bigger and bigger until they reminded him of saucers. Finally, his mouth began stretching into a toothy smile that made it absolutely clear just how much he would be ribbing them for this.
“Dad please -”
“Sigmund, for the love of all that is ho -”
They tried to stop the incoming disaster, but it was already too late: the gunpowder had been set on fire, the heat already causing its explosive reaction, and no amount of water being dunked over it could stop it anymore.
Sigmund opened his mouth and Amarie, in a desperate attempt to stop whatever was coming, grabbed the nearest thing she could find and threw it at the lizardman. That thing wound up being Liam. He felt himself being lifted from the ground and, a moment later, being thrown bodily towards his teacher, probably all with the help of a Skill. The whole action took no more than five tenths of a second, the flight itself two seconds.
He crashed into the lizardman and half expected to hear a cartoony sound effect from M̵͍̓i̶̼͑c̵̱̈k̶͉̈́ë̵͚́y̶̗͗ ̵̞̐M̶͎̂ô̸̳u̵͉̿s̶͈̀ȅ̸̘’̸̘̋ŝ̷̪ ̸̙̄S̴̨̀t̷̝͌e̶̩̍a̵̬̐m̸̹̐b̴̨͊o̴̧͗a̴̞̎t̴̬͂ ̸͍̐Ẉ̷͠ȉ̵̯l̸͚̑l̴̲̃i̷̛̠ě̸͍ or something like that. Instead the only sounds that could be heard were the oompf of air leaving both of their lungs as they crash landed on the floor.
Sigmund’s eyes rolled back inside his head for a moment, his prosthetic leg popping off silently, then he blinked and looked Liam right in the eyes, his smile coming back.
“Welp, took you two long enough.”
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“So you already knew,” asked Liam at the table, holding a piece of frozen… krimou, right, that’s what those strange hybrid cows were called, to his head, where a big bump was slowly attempting to form.
“I’m many things Liam: a genius inventor, a great commercialist, an even better shopkeeper, but first and foremost, I’m a father. And I’m also not blind, not for lack of attempts on the part of my experiments. I clearly saw how you two were looking at each other for the past three months or so. I say, youth these days. Back in my day -”
“Dad,” calmly said Amarie in a very threatening tone.
Apparently, though, the lizardman’s brain had been slightly scrambled by the last hit, or he had a lot more courage in him than he let on, because he continued: “- we would start courtship as soon as possible, not wait until destiny and hormones had their course.”
“Dad! We didn’t -”
“I said the same thing to my parents when I did it back in the day, Amarie dear. Worry not, I’m not against it. I actually think you two make a great couple! And don’t worry about making too much noise, the walls were soundproofed for a reason.”
The [Knight Commander], victor of dozens of battles, found herself at a loss in front of her father’s absolute frankness and total misunderstanding. She attempted to default to the ‘throw something at him’ reaction, but found out that Sigmund had taken away everything from the table they were talking at, and Liam had conspicuously moved out of easy grabbing range. She was, of course, extremely embarrassed by her reaction a few minutes prior, but couldn’t deny to herself that it had been satisfying on a deeply visceral level.
“Sigmund, for the last time, we did nothing tonight. We only cuddled.”
The lizardman looked at them completely horrified, putting a hand over his heart: “Cu - Cu - Cuddling?” he said, stuttering, “You mean… the obscene act second only to hand holding in obsceneness?”
Liam and Amarie slapped their foreheads at the same time.
“Is that even a word? Obsceneness?” asked Liam, trying desperately to divert the conversation to something, anything, else.
Sigmund shrugged: “I have no idea. Maybe? You tell me.
“Anyways, don’t try to shift the subject around like you did with my leg a few minutes ago. I…”
He stopped, his expression turning slightly more serious, although he was still smiling slightly in happiness.
“I approve of this. You two, I mean. You make a good couple. Liam, you’re kind and have a good head on your shoulders, which you will need to keep this dumbass,” he pointed to Amarie, “alive. And you, Amarie, have the biggest heart this world has ever known. Your head’s not screwed in as well as I’d like it to since you want to fight in these wars so much, but you’re brave, and you know when to stop.
“So yeah, go ahead. I won’t interfere or stop you two. You can go bonk in the night as much as you’d like.”
That final sentence would’ve caused Liam to spit water from his mouth had he been drinking any, but luckily Sigmund had had the presence of mind to take away his glass of water before saying all of this.
“Now, you two have two days to spend together, enough time for me to contact some people and get the lab back in shape. I’m warning you, Liam, next thing on the list for you to learn is how to craft bags of holding. I’m sure you’ll be able to apply the concept for that weapon of yours as well.”
With that the lizardman stood from his chair, wobbling on his prosthetic leg that had been reattached wrong apparently, settled said prosthetic right onto the stump of his leg, and walked towards the stairs leading down into the shop.
A few seconds later he came back.
“Forgot breakfast?” asked Liam, although it wasn’t really a question.
“Forgot breakfast.”
They ordered food from the nearby bar because nobody was in the mood to cook.
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Two wonderful days later Liam was standing in a freshly renovated laboratory, wearing his old safety equipment, a dwarf by his side doing the same.
“Isn’t your beard at risk of catching on fire?” asked Liam, who’d had the displeasure of having his hair nearly catch on fire.
“Nah, I’ve got a special balm to make it flameproof,” said the dwarf as he surreptitiously caressed his big beard.
“Nothing magical in that balm I hope,” said Sigmund.
“Nah, only the blood of a Spitter Lizard from back home mixed together with some reagents. Nothing magical to it, only alchemy.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Ah, [Alchemists] and their ilk, they’re greedier than dragons,” sighed Sigmund before clapping his hands together and walking into the newly renovated room.
“Alright then, let us start with the lessons on crafting bags of holding.
“Now, there are around a dozen possible concepts for these little delights, all of them different in both complexity and costs. The most common and, by far, most beloved one, is one where we create space inside a normal bag, making a non-geometrical space, bind it to the opening, and then test out how much it can hold by throwing random stuff in until nothing more can fit. It’s fun, easy and, most importantly, very cost effective, although it’s quite… random, yes, that would be the best word for it.
“Another method, which would be the second most popular, and by far also the most expensive one, is to create a space on our level of reality and then miniaturize it to fit inside a normal bag of holding, applying a miniaturization spell on the opening to make anything you put inside fit. The biggest problem with that is that mass is conserved, which means that you must also apply some enchantments to reduce weight, or, even better, something to fight the pull of gravity. As you can well imagine it’s a lot more expensive.”
Liam frowned: “Then why would it be so popular? I imagine only a noble could afford something like that.”
Sigmund nodded: “And you’d be imagining right! The average price for a bag of holding of that sort goes around three thousand gold coins, and that’s only for the smallest ones. The bigger they get the more expensive they become. But, they have an advantage compared to the first kind: if shit hits the fan and the enchantments stop working you’ll only find yourself on top of a room full of objects with a bump here and there.
“Meanwhile, if the enchantments of the stitching of a bag of holding from the first category is damaged or stops working, well, as I said, the space we put inside is non-geometrical. It shouldn’t exist. Which means that, the moment the enchantment fails, the space inside the bag will go back to not existing, and rather implosively at that.”
“Implosively?” asked Liam with an ever deepening frown.
“It means,” said Gaius, “that, best case scenario, the bag will be gone with everything it contained. At worst, it’ll take a chunk out of your leg or wherever you’re keeping the bag, probably killing you in the process.”
Sigmund piped up, adding: “A few years back a Kingdom right here in Rodar attempted to weaponize this concept, but failed miserably because the only bags of holding that could do that were ones with a lot of space inside. Afterwards he tried to sabotage every bag of holding in his enemy’s army, and succeeded greatly, winning the war by impoverishing the enemy kingdom with the loss of equipment that had to be bought anew.”
“Didn’t they turn it into a war crime afterwards though?” asked Gaius with a frown.
“Oh absolutely! The king, though, didn’t care, so the College got involved, and now that kingdom is no more,” agreed the lizardman.
Liam raised a hand and Sigmund nodded his way: “If those bags of holding are so dangerous, then why do people keep buying them? Why are they even the most popular solution?!”
He shrugged: “Making them doesn’t cost much, which means buying them is easy enough and affordable for pretty much anyone. And the best solution to the problem of an enchantment failing is to do the one thing everyone should always do. Maintenance. Just go to the first two copper [Mage] in a Mage’s Guild you can find and ask them to check the enchantments. They can easily repair any damage for a small fee.”
That explained a lot of things.
“Now, you should already know this Gaius, but I’m explaining all this for Liam who hasn’t.”
The dwarf nodded in understanding.
“As I said, the idea behind bags of holding is simple enough. The way one actually makes them, now, that’s another pair of trousers altogether.”
At both of his students’ mighty frowns he sighed: “What? You think ‘Pair of trousers’ doesn’t fit?”
They both nodded.
“Well, you can kindly fuck off. I’m the teacher, I talk however I want. Now, as I was saying, making bags of holding is complex.
“In case of the non-geometrical ones, we need to perform a Spell, or rite if you prefer, that will open up a tear in reality towards another plane of existence from which a random amount of space will be harvested depending on a lot of different factors, chief among which is the amount of mana imbued in the Spell circle, followed by mana density in the area, followed by, and no, I’m not shitting you, the day of the week, and finally influenced, in small amounts, by any items you may have decided to throw into the opening before the Spell could cut away that bit of reality. Yes Liam?”
“The day of the week?”
“I’m glad you asked. Yes, apparently doing this Spell during a Grasei will result in a smaller space being harvested, while for some reason during Felsei you’ll end up with more space. Another good alternative is to do it on a Cremei. Never, and I underline never, do it during an Avrei.”
Those were, in order and in Earth terms, sunday, saturday, wednesday and monday.
“Why not during an Avrei?”
“The Spell’s been known to fail completely and rather, again, implosively during those days. I found it out the hard way: tried to do it during an Avrei, the Spell collapsed and took the magic circle, the floor underneath it and all the air inside the room. Had I been just two steps closer I would’ve lost my other leg. So do not make bags of holding during an Avrei. You understand me?”
Liam nodded as fast as his neck allowed it, remembering something Sigmund had told him a very long time ago: There is little difference between a [Witch] and a [Mage Crafter].
“Now, do you see this sheet of paper on the floor?” he asked, pointing at a relatively small sheet of paper with what, to an outsider, would look like a very complex diagram for a spell circle but was, in truth, rather… simple, all things considered.
“This is a standard spell circle to create a hole in reality and craft a bag of holding.”
They both nodded, although the dwarf was frowning.
“Very good. Liam, you got a good look at it?”
“Erm, yes Sigmund. It’s rather simple.”
“Good. Then forget about it. This is shit,” that said he took out a wand from his belt and proceeded to incinerate the apparently offending piece of paper.
“That’s what a second rate [Crafter] would use to sell some base quality shit. We don’t do that here, mainly because this Spell has a small chance of failing, and a small chance on Rodar turns into a certainty if it’s for something negative.
“This is the design we’ll be using, one I developed personally through trial and error.”
He pointed to the wall where, up until then, they hadn’t noticed the presence of a rather large set of parchments all pinned together to form a much bigger spell circle filled with symbols and incantations and runes and… basically every bit of knowledge he’d learned up until now.
“This spell circle has a proven zero percent chance of failure, requires four times the mana of the one I showed you before and creates, at a minimum, a space of ten cubic meters. For your information, that’s a lot of bananas.”
Now the dwarf was smiling, probably recognizing the design he’d been forced to learn.
“Now, if that was everything I’d say it’s a pretty easy thing to do. Problem is, since it requires a lot more mana than most spell circles, you must paint it using liquified mana stones, which, as you can probably guess, is expensive as fuck! But it’s worth the cost, and you only have to do it once, then you can just reuse it.”
Gaius frowned: “Wait, that doesn’t consume the charge of the stones?”
Sigmund chuckled: “I see Bevia forgot that last bit: no, the charge isn’t consumed. The spell we inscribe here isn’t that mana intensive, which means that part of the mana we inject inside them remains at the end of the spell, keeping them ‘active’. What, you seriously thought Bevia redrew the whole circle every single time? She doesn’t have the patience for that. Or she didn’t. I’m not so sure today.”
He looked back up at the design on the wall and smirked.
“Now, Liam, I want you to use my good brushes and paint that spell circle on the floor right there,” he pointed towards a space that was completely free, “as best as you can using these really expensive gems that I pre-melted for you. You have around thirty minutes before they solidify, at which point I’ll teach you how to melt them again.”
Liam’s jaw dropped to the floor as Gaius by his side burst out into laughter.
And Sigmund? He only raised a scaly eyebrow and motioned him to get a move on: “No time for gawking boy. Time’s ticking. I hope you’ll be as good at painting with those hands as you were pleasing my daughter.”
This time the dwarf’s laughing turned into half choked shrieks as he fell to the ground and began tearing up, gasping for air.
“Come on! Spell circle won’t paint itself.”
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Naturally he failed miserably. Five times, actually.
He found out that melting gems was surprisingly easy as the mana was eager to get out, reducing the melting point to something close to gold’s. Naturally it was kept inside the forge by a spell circle of its own that insulated the area inside from the outside, keeping the mana in and slowly compressing it back into the gem slurry, as he’d started to call it.
What he had found out he was not good at was writing small words with a substance that basically acted like some kind of gel, sticking to everything. Even his [Steady Hand] Skill was no use for that.
On his first try, Sigmund had noticed exactly thirty six mistakes all over the circle and destroyed three hours of work in a matter of seconds by using the Skill [Salvage Materials]. His best attempt had been the second, in which he’d only made fifteen mistakes in the pattern. He was not proud of the number of those he had made on the last attempt, after which Sigmund had said they’d been done for the day.
He ate dinner mechanically, then went into his room, put on his necklace, tripped on his desk and fell right into his bed, already asleep before his head could hit the pillow.
The System, as always when it came to making Liam Level up, had to stop and think, always because his Class gave him access to many Uncommon and, sometimes, even Rare Skills, but his Level didn’t fit the parameters for them.
After a few microseconds of thinking, though, It came to a decision.
[Mage Crafter Level 14!]
[Skill - Substance: Aspects of Paint Obtained!]
[Skill - Hastened Melting Obtained!]