The Runic Artist

Nate leaned back in the chair in his suite. It was a comfortable chair, the kind made for relaxing in after a long day. That was exactly the kind of day he’d had. A long one, if not a particularly difficult one. He’d been called up to fight two more times and both fights had been as simple as his first one. The simple fact was, his skills were more powerful and he likely had more stats than most of these Silvers with their first evolution Rare tier class. Even with their extra ten levels, they just fell short and didn’t have the means to bridge that gap. That wasn’t to say such means didn’t exist. Enchanted items, runic arrays, stat orbs, dungeon rewards, alchemy, the list went on for ways to increase your power beyond the limits of your Class and Skills.

That was all going through his mind as he tried to brainstorm a way to deal with Null. Fortunately he wasn’t alone in trying to solve this problem. Luc stood in front of the now dried painting of Florence. He couldn’t tell if his mentor was critiquing it or just taking a moment to ogle. Kiri was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling while Frick worked on top of the dresser.

“So, you’re saying that their stats could be significantly higher than we expect?” she asked.

“For those two? Definitely. Null and Coralie are probably close to the cap that a Class Core can support for Orb fueled Stats,” replied Luc absently, leaning closer to the painting.

Nate nodded. “So half again the stats provided by their Classes. That’s a lot of Orbs.” He paused for a second to do the maths. Assuming they were both Epic Primary and started as a Rare Primary, then their maximum stats from Classes was just over four hundred. That meant they could’ve added another two hundred with Orbs, not including stat boosting Skills or enchanted items. He hadn’t seen a sign of either of them using alchemicals, not that he knew what to look for beyond vials.

Luc peaked out from behind Nate’s painting, brown hair swept back and blue eyes twinkling with amusement. “I could help you solve this more easily if I knew exactly what I was working with. When are you going to ‘fess up and tell me what your Classes are, kid?”

“As soon as you agree to the System Contract,” Nate retorted with a smirk.

Luc paused, giving it serious consideration for a change. It had become obvious that his curiosity was starting to get the better of him and he had to have realised that at the very least Aisling was in ‘the know’.

“Twenty levels though? That’s a lot, kid. Maybe a more reasonable five?” Luc wheedled.

“That was Aisling’s offer. Twenty from her and Deverell. The least you could do is match her half. Ten for Kiri and ten for I if you want to know our Classes,” he replied before adding with a smirk. “Last offer.”

Luc grunted, going quiet as Nate assumed he was once again considering the offer. Nate could recognise the benefits of his mentor knowing the full extent of his capabilities. Luc also seemed in higher demand from the Guild than Aisling, likely due to his spatial skills, which meant that if he knew Nate’s Classes he could likely afford to pay for more of his creations. That was a serious consideration as Nate was yet to come up with a way to sell his ‘wares’. So far he’d mostly just crafted runes he needed, or a few for Kiri. The one exception so far had been the Mana Gathering Arrays for Luc and that had already netted him, in total, over forty stats in Magic Power from Orbs.

Based on the conversation, his cap from Orbs was a whopping two hundred and fifty with change. He had used less than twenty five percent of that which left a lot of room for growth and Luc seemed like the kind of person who might actually be able to afford his better creations.

That being said, he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his secrets on the chance of getting ahead. Aisling had warned him to be careful who he trusted, and while he liked Luc, the man's cavalier attitude made it difficult to trust him with that kind of information.

“Can we get back to discussing Null and Coralie please?” said Kiri, sounding slightly annoyed from her position on the bed. She’d agreed that revealing their Classes needed to be a two for one deal as anyone who found out that either of them had a Mythic Class was likely to suspect the other might as well, given they were as thick as thieves.

“Coralie has a Skill that lets her apply a Concept to her Spells,” piped up Frick from where he was sitting on a dresser, channelling Runic Creation into a ring for Nate.

“What makes you so sure of that?” he asked.

“When you let me do a little spying I was using your sphere of awareness,” replied Frick, being careful not to use the actual name of the skill. “With your knowledge skill I could detect a hint of it. It was something to do with ice…but not exactly ice? You might’ve been able to figure it out, boss, but I can’t use the skill as well as you.”

“Nor are you as smart as him,” piped up Kiri, sniping at Frick.

Frick didn’t seem bothered though, just flashing a sharp toothy smile as he continued to channel mana into the skill, the rune slowly being imbued into the black gloves he held. Nate knew he could’ve done it faster and was toning it down since Luc was present. Nothing like a little casual obfuscation of the extent of his skills.

“Okay. Coralie is on her way to embodying Frozen based on her Classes. Let’s assume she can add that Concept to her Spells, much like the Devouring Light could add the Concept of Devouring to its skills. Then we’ve got Null who seems to be able to nullify foreign mana that comes into his sphere, which he seems to be able to control the distance to some extent. Also, he has a boosting Skill,” said Nate, laying it out again.

“He’s hybrid, like you,” said Luc casually.

“What?” said Kiri and Nate at the same time.

“He’s hybrid. Has to be. A warrior mage hybrid,” Luc responded, pausing his staring at the painting to smirk at them both.

“Explain it to us,” Kiri demanded before he could even open his mouth.

Luc tapped his lip in thought for a moment before shrugging. “Fine. Let's lay it all out. Even if he is like Coralie and has a Concept assisting, the Concept enough isn’t alone.”

“It needs mana,” Nate whispered as he realised.

Luc jabbed a finger at him, “Exactly. But more than that, it needs to be able to match the mana it is cancelling. You can stack various methods together to make up for shortcomings, but ultimately, he needs to be able to match his opponents mana using some mix of Magic Power, mana volume, Skill, Concept and potentially Channelling Speed. Even if he has access to a powerful Concept and a Skill to apply it, he’d still need at least some of the Stats to back it up.”

“Wouldn’t the Stats he probably got from Orbs be enough if they were all for say Magic Power and Mana Reserve?” asked Kiri, sitting up and paying attention now.

“Nope. Look, maybe it’d be enough against the lower Class rarity mages. But anyone like Coralie, who you said has an Epic and Rare mage class? No way. She’ll have multiple skills multiplying her Magic Stats or boosting them when she uses spells of the ice domain and what was the other one?” Luc said, glancing at Nate.

“Light,” he supplied as he listened intently.

“Exactly. Coralie’s Stats and Concepts should be able to overwhelm his nullification if it was only backed by Magic Stats from Orbs. But you told me she seemed to defer to him? And everyone I have spoken to has told me how Null is the number one Silver Badge in the Etrua Adventurer’s Guild. If he is stronger than Coralie, he has the Stats to back up that Skill. He’s a hybrid,” Luc finished.

Kiri looked at Nate and he suspected they were having the same thought as he said, “You’re faster than him when boosted. Probably?”

Kiri grinned and nodded before glancing back at Nate, worry written on her face, “That doesn’t help you though.”

Luc smirked at the tidbit. He knew that Nate was hybrid but Kiri had basically just told him that he probably couldn’t just use his own mana to overwhelm Null’s Skill. Kiri realised a moment later, blushing and mouthing ‘sorry’ at him. He couldn’t blame her. It was easy to let things slip, and besides, Luc would need more than that to figure him out. Besides, he finally had some ideas for a path forward.

“Alright, I think I have enough to work with. Anything else you wanted to go over, Kiri?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said, bouncing up before heading for the door. “Deverell said he’d give me some evening training if I was up for it. Breakfast in the morning?”

Nate nodded his agreement as she vanished out the door before he turned back to Luc.

They stared at each for a moment before Luc grinned, “So, here’s the deal, kid. I can get my hands on some other schematics. Things you might be able to improve. I’ll pay of course. What do you think?”

“If it’s interesting or useful and I don’t hate it, sure, we can negotiate some kind of deal,” he replied. As long as it wasn’t something that looked like it was used for mass murder he didn’t see a reason not to further expand his crafting. Besides, maybe it would have some new sigils on it.

“Perfect,” Luc replied, making the painting of Florence vanish into the man's own spatial storage.

When Nate raised an eyebrow Luc held up both hands defensively as he laughed, “I can’t believe I am saying this, kid, but I am just playing delivery boy for you. I’m headed to the Den myself. What self respecting performer doesn’t want to deliver an encore? Figured I would drop it off for your muse and save you the trouble. Unless you wanted to join me? You seemed to have a good time last night and the ladies certainly liked you.”

Nate rolled his eyes and shook his head to the negative, a slight blush decorating his cheeks as his mentor headed for the door, still laughing.

He waited for a few minutes after Luc was gone, making sure there was no one too close in his sphere of awareness. The taproom below was mostly full. Even with dinner over there were plenty of Guilders and guests happy to sit around, enjoying a drink and discussing the day's battles. Satisfied they had enough privacy he looked at Frick.

“How’s the barrier bracer coming along?” he sent mentally.

“Another two days till it’s Legendary, Boss,” Frick replied, before throwing him the now finished gloves.

It was only Rare tier. The thought made him snort as he felt his Awareness of the Runic Artist identify it.

Runic Gloves of Magic Power (Rare)

A pair of black gloves engraved with runes to empower the wearer's Magic Power.

Stats: +3 Magic Power per glove.

The sigils were holding it back still. They’d tried making a ring but ran into a slight problem. Engraving runes that small was really challenging. Like, really challenging. He’d thought with his Dexterity he might’ve been able to manage it but trying to miniaturise the rune with Runic Creation just wouldn’t go beyond a certain point. It seemed like a limitation of the skill, which at least opened up a path for evolution, if he wanted to push it in that direction. The smallest rune he’d managed with the skill was a few centimetres in diameter, which was still too large for a ring. He had considered trying to buy an engraving tool and engrave the runes manually, but that was just going to cause a longer delay. So instead they’d resorted to using gloves, which had turned out fine, if a little disappointing due to the Sigils only being Novice quality. After this tournament he was going to see if he could push his Runic Knowledge skill with its focus on Concepts to help him improve the quality of these sigils, but for now he was stuck with them.

Instead he leaned over his notepad and started sketching out a new rune. Kiri had offered to engrave new runes on their souls now that he had some new sigils to work with and he intended to take advantage of that. The question was, what would be best for them? The obvious solution was of course stats. A Magic Power focused rune could probably add another ten to fifteen percent to the Stat. But was that what he wanted? It was unlikely to be enough for Null, but that shouldn’t be his only metric should it? A voice inside whispered to him, reminding him that he would strive to be the best he could. After a moment he agreed. That meant his target wasn’t Null, it was beyond Null, and the fact was a bit of extra Magic Power wasn’t going to manage that.

His face lit up with a smile as he realised the path he wanted to take for his own soul engraved rune. He began to scribble down the start of the rune when he felt pressure against his soul. Flooding mana into Awareness of the Runic Artist it took him a second to sense the absence, which was quickly moving towards the ground outside the inn. It was similar to Null but not the same. Where Null was a hole in the sphere of awareness, this felt more like a shadow slinking through it. For some reason it couldn’t sense their body but it could sense the mana they were using, if barely. Rushing to his window he looked out at the courtyard as the presence vanished. Glancing back at Frick he raised an eyebrow.

“Politics or something else?” he asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Boss,” replied Frick, not pausing in using Conceptual Material.

He was going to sleep with a couple of Barriers going tonight was his thought as he returned to his table to finish figuring out this new rune.

*************

Helena slipped off the roof of the inn as soon as she was noticed, Unseen Shadow making it simple to vanish amongst the gathering below in the courtyard of the Adventurer’s Guild compound. The strange boy's veil was impenetrable. Her skill had failed in the Guildhouse, and now, even with the enchanted identification wand she’d been noticed trying to bypass his veil. She’d have to report this. Null was an expected case and she’d been warned she’d likely fail to determine his classes. But Null was just one. One would’ve been acceptable. Two would’ve been improbable. Three should be impossible. Had another House slipped in their own operatives? She’d have to let Gabrielle know. If their cover was blown, their own House would disavow them rather than getting tangled up with the Guild. They weren’t worth enough to earn the Guilds ire. Her face blank but her thoughts in turmoil, she hurried back towards their shared room to debrief her partner.