Magic School Loop

Day 6(Week 1 of school)

Day 4 – Ferradine (Runes, Crafting, Mechanics)

🛠️Crafting System

Step 1: Choose Project Type: Major or Minor Projects

Major Projects: 3 or more Crafting Session

Significant Armament: A defining weapon, tool, or focus.

Enchanted Armor: Armor or clothing enhanced with protection, passive abilities, or reactive enchantments.

Modular Kit: A toolkit that supports a particular discipline or lifestyle(alchemy, medic, thief).

Field Pack: A thematic adventuring loadout(explorer, cook, scribe, beast-tamer, scout)

Companion Creation: Make a construct, summon a creature, animate an item

Magic Infrastructure: Establish semi-permanent magical facilities that support crafting, defense, summoning, or travel. Like altars, workshops, defense pylons, teleport pads.

Pocket Base/Haven: Create a secure and personalized mobile base, dimensional haven, or hidden rest point. Places to train in, secure items, and lay low.

Spell Vehicles: Construct a magically powered mode of transportation—landbound, airborne, aquatic, or interplanar.

Living Codex: An evolving magical record—spellbook, journal, bestiary, dreamlog, or spirit(ai)-bound guide.

Custom Magic Item: A one-of-a-kind magical item for you or situation.

Minor Projects: 1 Crafting Session

Weapon Mod: Enhancements that modify a weapon's behavior, speed, or precision.

Utility Tool: Support gadgets or kits for specific tasks or roles.

Equipment Add-on: Passive gear attachments that improve durability, stealth, or defense.

Focus Item: Tools that enhance concentration, casting, or mental tasks.

Consumables: Single-use items with tactical or healing value.

Ward or Sigil: Minor protective glyphs or territory markings.

Charm/Token: Small magical objects offering luck, boosts, or minor effects.

Traps: Deployable defensive or offensive magical snares.

Bits and Bobs: Small miscellaneous items or things

Step 2: Gather Materials

Primary Base:

Structural frame(Yggdrasil branch, Phoenix Feather, Unicorn Horn)

Magical Core:

Focused energy source(Mana Crystal Shard, Elemental Core, Beast Dantian)

Spell Circuitry:

Defines magical function (Stability Glyph, Recoil Sigil)

Optional Bonus:

Flavor or utility (Beast Fang, Memory Paper, Void Glass)

Step 3: Select Your Crafting Method

Step 4: Crafting Roll

Failure:

Non-functioning or major instability, roll large flaw or curse

Partial Success:

Works but with limitations, reduced durability or quirks

Full Success:

Clean result, unlocks all planned bonuses

Overcraft:

Gain hidden passive or earn a crafting skill boost or rep

-

Morning: Arcane Gunsmithing – Workshop with Elra Vintock

Topic: Tools, a Smith's handy utensil
The Smeltrune didn't just hum today—it roared. The whole sector pulsed with mana exhaust, the hammer-clang of bound-metal shaping, and the unmistakable smell of molten glyph-stone being carved by precision flame. Steam hissed from overhead pipes. Mana lights flickered in sync with thundering forge-rhythms. The workshop floor was a maze of benches and blast shields, with animated clamps twitching like mechanical crabs and levitating anvils sparking with bound flame. It wasn't just a workshop—it was a forge cathedral, and the magic here had teeth.

Elra Vintock was already there—half-arguing with a self-updating chalkboard that kept revising her diagrams in passive-aggressive flourishes. "You can slap a binding matrix on a barrel," she barked at the chalkboard. "Don't forget the heat siphon runes you idiot."

Then she turned on the class. She stomped down the workshop aisle, grease on her cheek and a glint in her eye that suggested caffeine and defiance in equal measure. She gestured broadly at the half-finished projects and rune-scarred workbenches.

"Some of you came in here expecting to build a spell-gun on day one," she said, her voice cutting through the clangor like a hammer to glass. "You thought you'd slap together some fancy core housing, etch a few runes, and boom—out comes your legendary weapon."

She leaned on a workbench, grabbing a battered, rune-scorched hammer from her belt. It was gnarled, ugly, and thrumming faintly with mana residue.

"This? This has split more castings than half your baby spells combined. You want to craft something that doesn't explode in your hand? Then you better learn this first: a smith's tool is an extension of your will. Your first build isn't a gun. It's the thing that lets you shape the guns, cores, frames, and enchantments to come."

She walked past each workstation, eyes sharp. "You don't start by forging fire. You start by forging the thing that survives fire." A pause, then a wry smile tugged at her lips. "So no, you won't be making weapons today. You're making the tool that will help you build the rest of your legend. Get it wrong, and you'll waste hours down the line. Get it right… and even your mistakes will teach you something useful."

Then, clapping her soot-blackened hands together, she barked: "Let's see what you're made of."

You dug through crates of junk: shattered mana-cylinders, heat-warped grips, half-melted runeplates. Most of it was junk—but that was the point. Real crafters worked from ruin, not perfection.

Then you saw it.

A nail. Thick. Rusted dark. Bent slightly, with what looked like old blood staining its edges. It was embedded in a splintered grip of burned strange metal, like it had once been pulled out of something that shouldn't have existed. It pulsed—not magically, but like it remembered being useful.

You hauled it to your bench. Hexnut, Elra's golem assistant, tilted its boxy head and made a grinding noise somewhere between confusion and pity but handed you a micro-forge torch anyway. You got to work.

First, the rust—you didn't erase it. You shaped it. You preserved the pitting and let it form a natural texture along the grip. Next, the core channel—you hollowed out a pulse chamber along the shaft using precision flame, threading a filament of silver-lead to guide energy flow. Then came the triune binding rune—etched carefully into the nail's head with a stylus keyed to your breath. Steady. Deliberate. One stroke for durability, one for channeling, one for adaptability.

You socketed a shard of mana-glass into the base—not for show, but to track flux resonance and catch magical surges. It glowed faintly now, responding to nearby spell pressure like a forge-worn heartbeat. And then… you reached deeper. Past the metal. Past the form. You reached inward.

Your Reinforcement magic wasn't about showy power—it was about fortification. About pushing past the limit. You let a thread of it spill into the nail-hammer, wrapping it not with fire or force, but with focus. A practiced tension filled the tool's core—like a breath held before a strike, like a tendon bracing for recoil. Your own magic settled into it naturally, sinking into the fractures instead of trying to erase them.

It didn't reject you. It didn't ignite. It accepted the weight. The result wasn't flashy. But it was true. A compact, hand-worn utility hammer—small enough to loop on a belt, heavy enough to mark steel, tuned finely enough to channel spellwork in a pinch. It could drive rune-studs, realign etched circuits, shatter binding seals, or deliver a focused Reinforcement pulse like a tap on reality's shoulder.

- 1 Mana

By the time Elra stomped by, you were finishing the final binding weave. She squinted at the tool, pulled a glowing caliper from her belt, and inspected the piece in silence. "Not bad," Elra muttered, handing back your tool. "Could knock sense into a ghost with that thing."

It was rough, blackened, and hand-worn already—but it felt right in your grip. Not flashy. Not perfect. But true. A minor tool. A major first step.

Roll for Minor Item(Utility Tool)[1d8(Talent) +1 Day Bonus + 1 Instructor Bonus +1 Relationship Bonus +1 Magic]

Full Success Threshold: 10[Halved for first time item!] 5!

Rolled 8, Great Success

Crafted: Thornbolt' Smithy Hammer(Charge 15/15)

Craft Bonus: +1 to rune-etching.

Passive Effect: Insight to identify crafting flaws.

Combat Utility: Can deliver minor pulse shock

-

Afternoon: Magical Ballistics – Workshop with Professor Liora Fenwick

Topic: Alchemic Ammunition & Volatile Mixtures

The smell of ozone, alchemical burnstone, and gunpowder hung thick in the air. The firing field from earlier had been transformed—half laboratory, half warzone. Bronze extraction hoods belched steam over rune-inscribed worktables, and a chorus of bubbling flasks echoed under the hiss of controlled mana flames. Arcane pressure clamps lined the walls.

A sign hung above the blackboard: "Precision Is the Difference Between Innovation and Explosion."

Professor Fenwick stood at the center of the chaos, her gloves already dusted with silver nitrate and runed chalk. Unlike her usual hovering elegance, she wore a reinforced apron and thick goggles pushed up into her hair. "Today," she said, "you'll be brewing your own chaos."

She walked between the students like a chemist-general. "There's a difference between casting a spell and loading one. This—" she tapped a glass shell of shimmering green with a metal stylus "—is what happens when alchemy meets gunfire. These are your reagents, your formulas, your lives. And probably someone else's death."

Your assignment: assemble a personal Gunpowder Alchemy Pouch—a modular kit for brewing field rounds, customizing detonation behavior, and refining spellcharge payloads. A minor project, but one with major consequences.

From the bins and racks, you collected: Crystal vials etched for elemental storage, detonation caps linked to trigger glyphs, reactive cores tuned to different mana polarities, stabilized casting gel, a worn steel case, scorched and scuffed, but salvageable.

At your station, you carefully arranged your components into a fold-out modular kit, complete with quick-stow racks and a rune-anchored stabilizer plate. You etched containment seals into the case lining using the diamond-tipped stylus like a scalpel, your breath syncing to your strokes. Then came the internal arrangement—vial cradles, glyph-slot compartments, a focus-stone mounting for transmutation tuning.

Then came the ritual binding fuse—a short, dangerous moment where you connected your personal mana signature to the kit. If you did it wrong, it would either explode or never function again. You braced. Focused. Let your magic thread into the frame like liquid metal through a crack. It drank your mana slowly. The casing vibrated once. Then stilled.

- 1 Mana

The vials shimmered. The seals held. Professor Fenwick passed behind you without looking. "Smells like you didn't set yourself on fire. Progress."

It wasn't flashy. But it was yours. A tool for creation, chaos, and survival. A quiet bomb waiting to be composed.

Roll for Minor Item(Utility Tool)[1d8(Talent) +1 Day Bonus + 1 Instructor Bonus +2 Relationship Bonus +1 Magic]

Full Success Threshold: 10!

Rolled 7, Partial Success

Crafted: Blackfume Satchel(Charge 7/7)

Storage: Holds up to 3 charges or powders

Efficiency: Reduces reagent cost by 3%

Risk: 20% chance of instability when mixing two or more reagents

-

Evening: Arcane Gunsmithing – Instructor Office Hour (Gun Mods)

Location: Smeltrune – Redhook Annex "The Barrel Room"

The sun had dipped below the dimensional ridgeline, leaving only a bruised violet glow above the school. Deep in the annex's bowels, past ticking gear-doors and flickering spelllights, you found the Barrel Room where his instructor was busy at today.

It wasn't large, but it breathed depth. Dozens of prototype guns hung suspended in midair—rotating slowly in rune-stasis. Tools drifted like iron familiars across levitation grids. Motes of gunpowder floated weightless. And in the far corner, a kiln the size of a carriage pulsed with blue flame, humming to the rhythm of arcane combustion.

Elra was hunched over a reinforced vise, tweaking a brass-bored pistol with a tiny multi-headed wrench. She didn't look up as you entered. "Office hour, not storytime. If you've got a gun mod idea, get to it."

You unwrapped your revolver, the old thing wasn't much—just a blocky, temperamental thing with a cast-iron bite. But now you had tools, and better: ideas. One day you might have to get rid of it and make something better, even the training weapons were better than it, but it had sentimental value and you didn't think you were ready to take on such an undertaking.

You proposed a simple modification: an interchangeable barrel mount with quick-rune threading for variable round types. A prototype from the Ammunition Alchemy Kit you'd finished that afternoon could slot right in.

Elra grunted approval. "You want to build a modular firing system? Then you'll need to respect the layering between brass, blood, and binding. Have you ever had your glyphs shear off mid-discharge? No? Good. Let's keep it that way."

Under her guidance, you: Disassembled the barrel casing using your custom nail-hammer, whose resonance helped knock loose stubborn spell-locks. Etched a rotational binding sigil onto the inner chamber rail, allowing for rapid barrel swaps. Installed a miniaturized stabilizer coil, scavenged from a melted wand core, to prevent over-surge from untested alchemic rounds. Aligned the trigger matrix to recognize rune-patterns, not pressure—allowing for magical safety overrides.

Throughout the process, you infused your magic—subtle Reinforcement pulses threading through the grip, stabilizing feedback curves, and helping to shape a weapon that wouldn't just shoot but respond.

- 1 Mana

When it clicked back together, the revolver looked the same… but felt different. Tighter. Responsive. Like it understood what came next. Elra finally looked over, inspecting your work. She nodded once.

"You've got instincts. Or ghosts whispering in your ears. Either way, that'll shoot cleaner than most cadets' brains can think. Just remember: it's not about firepower—it's about function under pressure. Make it reliable. Make it yours."

She leaned back on a crate, expression unreadable under the forge's glow. "You're not ready to build a masterpiece. Not yet. But you just stopped being a tourist in your own craft."

She tossed you a small brass box. Inside: three glyph-stamped cartridges—Instructor-Issued Live Rounds.

"Field-test it when you're ready. Preferably when someone deserves it."

Roll for Minor Item(Weapon Mod)[1d8(Talent) +1 Day Bonus + 1 Instructor Bonus +1 Relationship Bonus +1 Magic +1 Skill(Gunsmithing) Bonus]

Full Success Threshold: 10!

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Rolled 12, Great Success

Crafted: Runebreaker Choke(Charge 12/12)

Craft Bonus: +1 Damage when firing personally crafted alchemical rounds

Ammo Switch Speed: Moderate (takes 1 action)

-

Give me Rolls

1d8+4(Nail Hammer)=5,

1d8+5(Gunpowder Pouch)=10

1d8+5(Gun Mod)=10

-

Day 7(Week 1 of school)

Day 5 – Veilmere(Spirits, Planes)

The sky above the academy shimmered like a stretched veil of silk — not quite one color, not quite solid. It pulsed faintly, as if some great force beyond the world were breathing through it. Veilmere had arrived — the day the walls between planes grew thin, and the air hummed with whispered names, forgotten things, and passing spirits.

Morning: Arcane Gunsmithing (Practicals - Skill)

The forge lab shimmered with Veilmere's subtle energy, every rune-etched wall humming with dormant heat. Usually, the air was sharp with ozone and alchemical smoke. But today, it buzzed softer — not loud like magic in action, but alive, as if the walls themselves were listening.

Joshua stepped inside, and the floor panels beneath his boots briefly glowed in response. Along the walls, enchanted runes flickered to life as he passed, one by one — not from motion, but recognition.

At his bench lay a sleek revolver frame — unfinished, forged from soulsteel that caught the light like liquid memory. The barrel bore half-etched runes that shifted faintly, incomplete. It was beautiful and dangerous. Potential in physical form.

Professor Elra Vintock, clad in her soot-streaked forge apron and flame-scorched gloves, strode past the workstations, steam trailing from her hair like the sigh of a dragon. Her goggles were pushed high into her wild braids, and her hammer tapped lightly against her palm like a conductor preparing a performance.

"Magical Metallurgy," she rumbled, voice gravel-thick with pride and warning, "isn't about melting metal. It's about listening to it. Every alloy remembers where it came from. Every spell-forged plate still hums with purpose. Some of 'em resist you. Some beg to be shaped."

She pointed at Joshua's soulsteel chassis. "That piece there? It's still dreaming of the ore vein it was pulled from. And it'll fight you if you try to make it into something it ain't ready to be."

Joshua inhaled slowly and rested his fingers on the cool metal. Then he closed his eyes and let his reinforcement magic flow—not to impose strength, but to feel. The magic threaded through his fingertips like warm current. He sensed tension in the channels, stubbornness in the grip frame, and the soft, hollow ache in the chamber — not emptiness, but hunger. He listened. And slowly, the weapon whispered back.

It didn't want to be heavy. It wanted to be quick. Agile. A conductor of precision, not brute force. Under Elra's sharp-eyed instruction, Joshua tuned to the soulsteel's resonant frequency, adjusting his etching pressure, modifying the reinforcement lines, and embedding spell-stabilizers not from diagrams, but instinct.

Spirit tingled at his wrists. The revolver sang in response — a low hum, like a bell struck in another world. For the first time, he wasn't just forging. He was harmonizing.

Arcane Gunsmithing - Class Progress 12/100

+1 Skill Progress - Magical Metallurgy 1(0/3): +1 Bonus to crafting, fixing and modifying metal objects

-

Afternoon: Instructor Office Hour – Magical Ballistics (Bullet Crafting)

Professor Fenwick's office resembled an alchemical crime scene. Brass diagrams floated in the air, a chalkboard scrawled with velocity-spell conversion charts, and a tray of unstable cartridges smoked under a warded dome.

"Veilmere's the best time to craft bullets with planar interactions," she explained, holding up a transparent round with a pocket of roiling fog inside. "Today you'll be working with spirit-powder and planar crystals. Dangerous. Don't sneeze."

Joshua tried crafting two bullet types:

Wraithpiercer

– A bullet infused with specter-dust, allowing it to bypass incorporeal targets and damage ethereal enemies.

Phasebind Round

– Designed to briefly anchor a target to this plane, preventing teleportation or phasing abilities for a short window.

Joshua carved the rune seals with patience, aligning the ignition coil around the anchor crystal. But as he tried to sync the crystal's polarity with his mana field—a flicker of resistance sparked.

He hesitated. It was enough. The anchor destabilized—crackling with interference. The bullet didn't explode... but the crystal inside shattered silently. A single flash. A plume of glittering, inert mana drifted like confetti across the table.

Fenwick exhaled slowly. "You almost had that one. Five percent too much focus. Ten percent too little respect." She waved her fingers. The broken pieces floated into a waste tray. "You'll try again next week."

Joshua sat back, fingers smudged with chalk-dust and trace crystal powder. Two failures. No success today—but not a waste.Failure, in Fenwick's class, was data.

Roll for Minor Item(Ammo)[1d8(Talent) + 1 Day Bonus +1 Instructor Bonus +2 Relationship Bonus]

Full Success Threshold: 10!

Rolled 5, Failed

-

Evening: Club – The Librarians (Bookshelving: Multiversal Gunslingers)

The Grand Library shimmered brighter on Veilmere. Portals drifted like lanterns between shelves, casting ripples of planar light across ancient floors. Today marked Joshua's first official day in service of the Librarians — more specifically, their explorer wing: The Wayfinder's Compass.

He stepped through the threshold and found himself deposited in front of a circular chamber suspended somewhere between logic and lore. A classroom, if one could call it that. The room breathed. Runes glided across the air like drifting constellations, and bookshelves spiraled upward into a ceiling lost in starlight. Wooden scaffolding twisted like tree limbs wrapped in ink-scribed vellum. A brass plaque hovered midair, rotating gently above a ring of floating platforms shaped like open books:

"Wayfinder's Compass — Orientation Circle"

Six others were already seated, each poised on their book-platform. As Joshua stepped forward, the group looked up. He scanned them in return. They were a strange bunch which at this point was basically everyone at this academy.

A neon-winged pixie with bubblegum-pink boots and a scowl chomped her gum like it owed her money. Her wings flickered with magic glitter.

A tall, ragged harpy woman slouched like a predator between kills. Her feathers shimmered oil-black, and her eyes were half-lidded but hungry.

A hobbit boy, barely waist-high, leaned back comfortably with a fat sparrow perched on his shoulder. He seemed to be watching everything and nothing all at once.

An elegant blue-skinned woman floated rather than sat — clearly an air genasi. Her hair swirled like a cloudbank, and scrolls flitted around her like lazy satellites.

A porcelain-skinned warforged sat ramrod straight, nervously adjusting her lace-collared dress. She was quiet, but her eyes blinked with shy tension.

And finally, a half-giant woman loomed at the far edge of the circle, legs crossed, arms folded. A massive weapon was slung across her back like an afterthought.

Joshua took an empty platform next to the genasi, offering no words. None were offered in return. He didn't know what he expected. But it wasn't this.

Then silence fell — not from absence, but arrival.

She emerged like thunder between lightning.

Tall. Severe. Dressed in layered coats stitched with parchment tags, magical notations, and inked glyphs. Chalk-pale skin. Steely green eyes. No visible weapon — only presence. Heavy and watchful.

"You will call me Madame Quell," she said, her voice smooth as slate. "I'll be your babysitter."

"Hey!" the pixie girl shouted, but with one look from the woman, she went silent.

"You are initiates of the Wayfinder's Compass. That does not make you explorers. That makes you liabilities."

No one laughed or spoke for that matter. She turned and pointed toward a newly-formed wall of rotating shelving that appeared out of nowhere, beside which hovered dozens of tomes stacked with ritual precision. "Your task tonight is simple. Shelve these books. Properly. According to dimensional origin, magical volatility, and combat applicability. Misplace one, and the library may attempt to digest you."

The genasi raised a hand, delicately. "Aren't we supposed to be multiversal treasure-hunters? This feels… clerical."

Quell's eyes narrowed a fraction. "You want to gallop off into the multiverse with spells blazing and relics in hand?" she said, voice low and unreadable. "Then shelve." She turned without further explanation, her coat whispering as she moved. "Do it properly. Or not at all."

And with that, she was gone, vanishing between shelves, swallowed by the twisting stacks like a shadow beneath a flame. For a long breath, no one moved. Then the half-giant woman cracked her neck, stepped off her platform, and grabbed a tome that looked like it was bound in furnace steel. "Well," she said with a shrug. "At least it's not sweeping."

-

Joshua's arms were already full. The books weren't heavy in the traditional sense, but they hummed with latent pressure, like they carried echoes of the stories inside them. As he drifted toward a spiraling shelf labeled "Lead & Legacy – The Deeds of Distinguished Gunslingers," a volume slipped from the stack and landed at his feet with a dusty thud. He stooped and picked it up.

"Ashiron Bale: The Last Hollow Aim." Its cover was fused from rusted casings and scorched leather. The moment he opened it, the scent of ozone and iron hit him—a sensory echo of a battlefield long dead. Ashiron had gunned down a godling with cursed glass rounds—but lost his sanity in the process. He later reforged his revolver from the god's bones and vanished into the Wailing Wilds. Joshua shelved it. Carefully.

"Carnus the Blackload." A multiversal outlaw who tethered timelines through bullet trajectories—ensuring he couldn't be killed without unmaking reality. His railcaster whispered secrets to anyone who dared hold it. One shot collapsed a civilization's future before it was founded.

Next came: "Saint Mercuria of the Fifth Law." A divine duelist who only ever fired a single bullet per battle—because each one was preordained to land where it was most just. Her gun was a relic. Her holster, a chapel. She disappeared after defeating a tyrant king by shooting the crown from his head without touching a hair. Then disappeared—perhaps absolved. Perhaps ascended or dead.

Another book was bound in chains: "Braxen 'Boomer' Vell." The genius chaosmancer who detonated the Unmaking Engine before it erased a quadrant of reality. He forged his bullets inside a collapsing star and pioneered the Jump Shot—a guncasting technique for zero-gravity duels.

Each book he touched had a soul. Some vibrated like taut strings. Others wept ink from their spines. A few screamed softly when opened. At this point he was too observed with reading the different books that biography these amazing characters, his task was long forgotten.

"Featherbrand." A fae duelist who traded bullets like favors. Her gun was carved from mythwood and her aim was bound by promise and poetry.

"Ma'kiri the Veilpiercer." The first to chart a bullet-path through the Bleeding Void. Created a revolver that could shoot between unstable dimensions. It sometimes returned bullets… sometimes didn't.

"Rak the Smiling Storm." A storm elemental whose body was wrapped in glowing lightning-sigil tattoos. Wielded twin stormrunner pistols that discharged miniaturized tempests.

"Grandmaster Feroz, the Living Arsenal." A towering being of a hundred arms, each armed with a different runeforged gun. Defended the floating city of Ma'har from a million invaders alone. His petrified body became the city's last wall.

"Slaethe, the Bullet-Eater." A mutant fugitive who grew stronger by devouring enchanted ammunition. Led a starborne rebellion using guncrafted monstrosities. His own revolver was grown from his jawbone.

Then there were the monstrous ones like; "Parfax and the Spindle-Sling." A voidborn arachnid whose gun spun like a loom, firing threads of crystallized fate. It rewove entire bloodlines with trick shots—mercy, murder, prophecy—woven from the same trigger. Some worship Parfax as a deity. Others keep fire at the ready.

"Gadratha, Queen of Spent Shells." A scorpion goddess with a tail-turret, armored in spent bullet casings. Once fired enough shells to turn a star spanning empire to ash.

"Skarruul the Ash-Wyrm." An apocalypse-bound dragon. Its revolvers were fused to its forelimbs, and its breath ignited bullet spells mid-flight. Skarruul only appeared at the end of ages—sometimes as destroyer, sometimes as savior. Some say Skarruul is the apocalypse.

There were some that he didn't know were real even like:

Neural Hexx.

An artificial mind that evolved too far, too fast. Hexx exists in the slipstream between magical cognition and digital sorcery. Their form shifts constantly, composed of spellcode and memory. Created the world's first "idea-bullets" — thoughts compressed into ammunition. In the Dream War, they shot down a god-thought before it could finish forming.

Seraphex, the Recoil Serpent

. A divine living paradox serpent coiled endlessly around a cosmic trigger. Its body is an ouroboros of gunmetal scales, etched with celestial inscriptions and impossible calibers. Each vertebra hums with the echoes of shots that were never fired—or haven't been yet. Its eyes are hollow casings filled with starlight.

Mother Hollow, the Womb of Powder.

A sentient ecosystem that births living revolvers — each with its own mind, purpose, and path. She never fires a gun, but her children change worlds. No one has ever seen her, only her "offspring." Some are cursed, some heroic, all unique.

The Prism Marshall.

A living concept made of seven different magical personas — each one a color, each one a form. Fights with mirrored guns that fire both light and soul. Each color represented a distinct facet of soul-magic, emotion, and intent.

The Crimson Echo.

There's no known person behind the Echo—just a red revolver that appears at pivotal moments in history and fires a shot that changes everything. Some believe it's the conscience of the multiverse. Others say it's the last weapon of a forgotten god still trying to finish a war.

There was one that caught his attention, that seemed to pull at Joshua's soul: Oren Quen, the First Shot. Some say he was the first to channel magic through gunmetal. Others claim he stole fire from the belly of dragons and turned it into bullets. He appears in many traditions under different names. No confirmed records. Every realm has a legend of him. Every archive claims him... or fears him.

Joshua stood there for a long moment. Then shelved the book. And moved on. He thought he had an idea what their 'babysitter' was doing. The books weren't random. Each tome seemed perfectly aligned with the person holding it. He wasn't just shelving knowledge — he was being guided by it. He was so self-observed in his reading and thoughts, he didn't hear it when he was called.

"Hey, hey, earth to mr.cowboy," came a breezy voice and a tap on his shoulder. He turned and found himself face-to-face with the blue-skinned air genasi. Her hair swirled gently around her shoulders, wind-touched even without a breeze.

"We've been introducing ourselves," she said. "You've been nose-deep in that book for ten minutes straight. What's got you so absorbed?"

Joshua held up the book in his hand. "I think I get what Miss Quell is doing. It's not just about sorting. We're shelving stories that reflect our own paths — gunslingers, in my case."

"No wonder I keep pulling nothing but scout field guides," called a cheerful voice. It was the hobbit holding up a book titled 'How Not to Die in a Ruin, Vol. III'. A fat sparrow on his shoulder squawked in agreement.

"Guess we're being shelved, too, huh," the pixie said, casually flipping her glittering wings. The pixie looked like she belonged on stage, not in a dusty archive. "I'm Nyree. Illusion sorceress. Pixie pop star. Master of images, sparkle, and controlled chaos. I weaponize vibes."

"Brannica," rumbled a deeper voice, slow and steady like falling boulders. The half-giant gave a casual wave, a slab of muscle. "Relic bearer. I carry ancient stuff so it doesn't break — or break you. Usually the second one."

"Timmlebray," said the hobbit with a warm grin. "But call me Tim. Scout, mapper, and occasionally a distraction. Kip here," he nodded to his bird, "does the seeing. I do the thinking."

Sorelle stood next, porcelain skin gleaming beneath soft library light. Her voice was delicate and oddly rhythmic. "Sorelle. I am... built for ritual harmonics and artifact stabilization. I read runes like others read tone."

Aestra nodded politely. "Aestra. I chart winds — especially the ones that flow between worlds. Spatial anomalies, planar folds, astral pressure... I can feel when places don't want to be found. I make sure to find them anyway."

The last to speak was the harpy, still leaning against a high stack of tomes, arms crossed, eyes wary. "Klyara. I hunt. I track. I don't talk much."

Joshua Samuelson. "Noted," Joshua replied with a nod. "I'm Joshua Samuelson. Gunslinger."

Somewhere deep in the stacks, a page turned on its own — like the library itself was listening. Their orientation had just begun.

-

Give me Rolls

1d8+4(bullets)=10

Rolled 5, Failed

-

Day 6 – Zarvian (Beasts, Exploration, Danger)

Morning: Redhook Linehouse – Dormitory Cart Exploration

Today, mercifully, there were no lectures, no training, no drills, no laboratory work. Just time. Joshua wandered Redhook Linehouse with a bathrobe, half-full coffee mug, and a rare absence of urgency. The magical train-dorm creaked lazily through dimensions beyond any map, its carriages humming with life—and secrets.

He'd barely scratched the surface of this train. Today, he wanted to learn more about it and uncover its secrets. Just then the Phantom Broadcast, the old radios coming from the speakers above started up. It was the same thing that greeted him when he came aboard, they turned on by themselves, playing messages from timelines that never were or different realities never heard about. Today it seemed to be playing a Love song.

The hallways of Redhook shifted subtly as he walked, air pressure thinning like memory, brass nameplates whispering as he passed. Some carts announced themselves; others blinked out of awareness like half-remembered dreams.

One bore a stitched placard: The Verdant Carriage—inside, a tiny greenhouse bloomed with bioluminescent herbs and floating pollen. Erin tended the beds while humming to himself. Noticing Joshua he gave him a tentative shy nod and a sample leaf that twitched like a heartbeat. "Try steeping it in tea," he whispered shyly.

Continuing on this way he next came upon a Bathhouse Cart. A hot spring floating in anti-gravity rings. The water shifted with moods. He made a mental note to return when he got the chance.

Then he came upon the Mask Gallery. Hundreds of magical masks hang on velvet hooks. Each holds a persona, a memory, a curse. If you wear one, you might borrow its history—or its madness. Marrow was there of course, cleaning one mask that had a frowning clown face. "Want one, you can live out the life of someone else for the day."

"Hard pass," Joshua muttered, walking faster. He passing by quickly cart 4, the Dreambound Sleeper cart. A sealed cart wrapped in velvet chains and charm-locks. Said to house a sleeping entity that once powered the Redhook's old engine. Some nights, you can hear it whisper train songs through the steel.

He came upon the Oracle's Carriage. Curtains of silver thread obscure everything. Inside, divination glyphs glow faintly on crystal panels. Mirrors whisper possibilities, but never certainties. An unseen presence sometimes answers questions—always in riddles. Ume was doing some divinations with tarot cards, "Want me to divine your future?"

"Maybe another time," he answered. He passed Virelle's dressing room which he had been in already. He was surprised when he saw her through the crack of the door knitting a dress. Then he came upon a Chapel with Neal praying in it. Once sacred, now ruined. Cracked altars and shattered glyph-prayers remain. Magic doesn't work here the way it should. "Would you like to offer a prayer?" the winged man asked him as he stepped inside.

There was even a Gauntlet course which Hella was firing through blindfolded as the cart was ever shifting. One moment tundra, the next a glass desert. Next was an actual dance club with suspended chandeliers and self-pouring cocktails. Ashford was kind enough to offer to make him a drink to unwind, but he pressed on.

He passed by the train's workshop, a roaring forge-cart filled with moving anvils and rattling rails which Velka was hard at work as sparks flew in the air like fireflies. Beating out Marrow's creepy room was Catelina's Anatomicum. Floating diagrams of magical anatomy rotate in the air. Transparent mannequins walk and react like patients. Catalina adjusted one's lungs while lecturing her doll who was watching patiently.

There were more places he took notice of, both strange and magical. All of them part of this strange train.

Then he came to the main attraction of the train, the Boxcar Trials. Everyone couldn't stop talking about it. It opens once a week for everyone; they only had one chance to beat the procedurally generated combat rooms or challenges — if they were able to beat it, they could get a small boost or item fragment.

Finally, after having his fill of adventuring, Joshua found himself wandering the length of the Redhook Linehouse, past the familiar carts of other students, each alive with strange sounds, alchemical flickers, and snoring familiars. Then he stopped. There it was again. The Hallowed Boxcar. Locked. Silent. Sealed in rune-banded ironwood and brass seams that pulsed faintly when he was near. A sigil like an unopened eye sat dead center on the door—unblinking, but not blind.

It wasn't assigned to anyone. No one claimed it. And yet, whenever Joshua walked by, the Redhook train sometimes… shuddered. Like a sleeper twitching in a dream. He stood, transfixed.

"That seems to want to claim you," came a voice behind him. He turned to see Flickwick, stepping out of her own cart. Smoke curled from the cracked door behind her, along with the faint scent of scorched spell ink and ozone. Her goggles were up, hair frazzled from another failed invention—or a successful one that just didn't know it yet.

"What do you mean?" Joshua asked. Before she could reply, another voice joined them.

Brandon, emerging from a neighboring cart, wiping flour from his hands and smelling of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, nodded toward the sealed boxcar. "The Redhook doesn't just give you a bunk to sleep in. It grows with you. Every student, if they last long enough… if they matter enough… gets the chance to shape a cart into their own. Their mark. Their echo."

Flickwick smirked. "Think of it like your soul, but on wheels."

Brandon chuckled. "That one's yours. Or will be. You just haven't earned the right to open it yet."

And with that, they left him there—alone again—facing the door that did not open.

-

Which Cart will you like to explore some more? 1 OPTION

Hallowed Boxcar: Build your own cart

Boxcar Trials: Try the trails

Gauntlet cart: Train yourself

Railwake Workshop: Craft something

Oracle's Carriage: Divine your future

Redhook Nightclub: Have a drink

Verdant Carriage: Grow some plants

Phantom Broadcast: Listen to the radio

-

Boxcar Trials: Try the trails

Stepping back from the mysterious door, Joshua was back at the Boxcar Trail wanting to try his luck here. Joshua stood before it, boots scuffing the floor of the last dorm cart in the Redhook Linehouse. The door was tall, warped like it had been chewed out of the train's side. Thick chains laced across it in a web, humming faintly with dormant runes. A brass plaque sat crooked above the frame: THE BOXCAR TRIALS

He touched the door's handle, feeling the train itself had invited him. He took a breath, and pushed it open. Click.

The chains slithered away like snakes. The door creaked open… and a rush of stale wind hit him, scented like burned parchment, old gunpowder, and something feral underneath. Joshua stepped inside.

The interior twisted behind him—no more door, no more train. He now stood in a circular stone vault, lit by violet lanterns that cast long, ghostly shadows. Cracked columns rose like broken gun barrels from the sand-strewn floor. On the far wall was a massive gate made of bone and brass, sealed shut. Then: Whirrr-clink!

A sound echoed overhead. From the ceiling, a rifle-shaped construct descended on metallic legs. Its barrel turned toward him and flared to life with a crackling ember. Words burned into the air: "Trial Commencing: SURVIVE."

With a hiss of steam and the clunk of ancient hydraulics, the first wave arrived. From the edges of the vault, shapes began to rise from the sand—constructs made of smoke metal, and wire, with faces covered by cracked masks and spell-rusted gunlimbs. One had a minigun arm. Another dragged a sniper barrel like a cane. They moved with erratic stutters, targeting him in unison.

Combat Simplified

1d4[Avg. BODY, MIND, SPIRIT] +1[MAGIC] +3[TALENT]=5>1d4[4 Gunlimb]=2

Joshua didn't wait. With a snap of his wrist, his revolver was out and he was firing. Crack. Crack. Boom.

The first construct staggered back, chest cavity blown open. The second flared up in a pillar of gunfire—his ricocheted bullet had struck a pressurized core. One collapsed just feet from him and exploded in a spiral of flame. But more crawled forward—limping, spitting fire, trying to flank him. He gritted his teeth. Slide under one. Fired upward. Bang! The construct's skull shattered, gears and bone dust flying.

Just as the last wraith fell, the floor cracked. From the fractures, a Bullet-Worm erupted—serpent-like machines that tunneled through stone, their hides plated with spent casings. Their shrieks sounded like ricochet whistles. At the same time, a swarm of Ricochet Bats zipped in—tiny, glowing fey-like beings made of errant spell-bullets and laughter.

1d4[Avg. BODY, MIND, SPIRIT] +1[MAGIC] +3[TALENT]=7>1d2[1 Bullet-Worm]+1d3[6 Ricochet Bat]=4

He was surrounded. A bat buzzed past his face, nicking his cheek with raw magic. A worm crashed into a wall where he'd been moments earlier. The fight turned chaotic—chaotic, but rhythmic. Like a song only he could hear.

He spun on instinct, fired a rebounding shot. It skipped off three pillars and tore through four bats mid-curve. He dove, rolled, reinforced his boots and leapt high. Midair, he fired downward into a worm's exposed maw. It exploded in a geyser of casing-shrapnel and ink-blood.

Digging through the corpses that laid around, he grabbed himself a sniper which he broke off a limb, and swung on his back a handcannoning he dug up from the gullet of the worm, and he got ammo from the bats that glittered the ground.

He noticed how the braziers dimmed. The sand went still. Then, the far wall peeled open, gears churning like grinding teeth. A tall figure stepped out—its body made of hollow leather dusters and braided bandoliers. No face. Just a burning, empty skull and a wide-brimmed hat. It carried two long-barreled pistols made of bone and shadow.

The Hollow Outlaw. A memory of a gunslinger who had killed too many to count.

1d4[Avg. BODY, MIND, SPIRIT] +1[MAGIC] +3[TALENT]=5>1d4[1Ghost Gunslinger]=3

It raised both guns—no warning. The vault roared with sound. Joshua was already moving. His magic flared, charging his legs, strengthening his arms. The shots grazed past him, leaving phantom echoes that distorted time for seconds at a time. His eyes blurred. His thoughts doubled back.

The Hollow Outlaw moved like a ghost, teleporting with every step, leaving behind flickering afterimages that each fired fake bullets. Joshua closed his eyes. Too many ghosts.

He inhaled. Slowed his breath. Listened. Bang. The real shot came—not from ahead, but to his left. He turned and fired not at the Outlaw—but the shadow it cast.

The bullet struck true. The Outlaw screamed soundlessly, guns flailing as its coat caught fire. Joshua surged forward, reinforcing his hands with magic. He spun his revolver once. Then twice. And fired the final shot into the Hollow Outlaw's hollow skull.

Click. BOOM.

The Outlaw collapsed into dust and ash. Silence. Then, the glyph reappeared in the air: "TRIAL COMPLETE. CLAIM YOUR REWARD!"

A pedestal rose from the ground, atop it sat a bracelet wrapped in red thread, pulsing faintly with heat. Etched on the casing: "Ashwaste Bracers: +2 Bonus for magic when training it!"

As he held it, the vault began to collapse—sand rising, braziers extinguishing. As if waking up from a sleep, the train returned with a jolt and he was right outside the door that led into the boxcar trail, feeling invigorated.

-

Loot - Ashwaste Bracers: +2 Bonus for magic when training

Recovered: +1 HP, +1 SP, +1 MP

Current: Body 6 - Stat Progress 7/60

Survived 3 rounds! +3 Body Progress

New: Body 6 - Stat Progress 10/60