B5 C52: Dungeon Finals II

The hydra’s reception was largely positive, even if Verin eyed it a bit warily after I warned her about the mosses’ poisonous natures. Spurred on by daily casts of Vivify, the moss finally began to look how I’d envisioned it, giving the brand new statue a sort of ageless, weathered charm.

Ultimately, I decided I was mostly happy with how it had turned out, though it was undeniably a bit rough around the edges. With my Stonemasonry having started at level ten, I hadn’t expected anything earth-shattering, but for an Initiate, I thought I’d done a pretty damn good job.

Still, part of the reason I’d started with the hydra was because I was the least invested in the project, and it would serve as a good warmup for the rest of my finals. The other three, I wanted to be perfect.

Drawing was the simplest of the remainder. By now, I’d clued in the others about my self-imposed tests, and I was happy to share my progress with them, save for my Drawing. It hadn’t taken long to figure out what to make, and to keep it hidden from any curious eyes, I snuck into the art studio while Verin slept. 

While it was a test, I wanted it to be perfect, and I wasn’t above using the room’s bonus to Drawing. The same went for my new stylus, which I used instead of any of the art supplies I’d crafted.

Unlike was true of my first project, here, I failed often, balling up my failed sketches before burning them up. After the twentieth failure, I had to accept that I needed a break. 

I’d get it. I knew I would, but I just needed a bit more time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Knowing that Architecture would be less involved than Smithing, I shifted to that next. Not that it was all that different from Drawing, but my goal here was far removed from what I’d been doing in the studio.

Naturally, the end result would be a blueprint. Given that I didn’t really feel the need to add any new rooms to our house right now, it wouldn’t be a basic one, either.

One of my bigger regrets of the last year was how little I’d used my new Legendary skill. In fairness, I’d had good reasons to shy away from it. Without decent blueprints, there wasn’t much I could do, and for that, I’d needed to level my skills up. I had spent a good deal of my downtime tidying things up in my mind, forging my mental fragments into “ingots” for lack of a better word. I’d even aspected a few with different types of mana, which would hopefully speed up any future building projects dramatically. Sadly, that didn’t grant me any bonuses.

I was finally able to make decent blueprints now, but none of them were good enough to build into my soul permanently, which meant I’d have to spend a lot of time and effort on something that would be temporary. If that wasn’t enough, I was also having trouble figuring out what to add. I could probably eke out a few skill bonuses depending on what I built, but truthfully, I was looking for deeper changes -- ones that would keep me from falling into the same patterns that had gotten me trapped in a dungeon in a coma in the first place.

It was a tall order, but at last I’d settled on something that might kill two birds with one stone.

First, the prep work.

Ink-wise, I was largely set. As advertised, my new stylus was self-filling, and the default ink appeared to be higher quality than what I’d been making. It looked like I could fill the demonic wing tip with my own ink, and in the long run, I might. I had a few ideas for making fancier ink, either through the use of mana-enriched herbs, or throwing something like mithril shavings in, but I was satisfied with my stylus for now.

The paper, I could improve upon, I hoped. While I hadn’t managed to grow any large mana-enriched trees, some of the other plants felt promising to my burgeoning Papermaking skill. More than that, after accidentally staining everyone’s teeth with that failed scorpion dish, I’d been forced to spend some time fiddling around with my Alchemy. With some tweaks, I was pretty sure the same solution that I’d used to whiten our teeth could serve as a weak bleaching agent for the paper, too.

It took some trial and error, but both hopes panned out. Some strange, cotton-like plant from my air garden ended up being the key to improving the paper’s texture, dissolving it into the slurry resulting in firmer paper that was markedly more pleasant to write on. The bleach required far more substitutions than I’d anticipated, as the original recipe was much better at removing dark stains than it was actually whitening anything, but I managed to work it out in the end.

With ink and paper in hand, it was time for the real work to begin.

As I’d slowly learned, soul architecture was half exacting science, half will and intent. While I specified dimensions, materials, and mana types, I conjured forth images from my past: my countless sessions with Verin, slowly honing my artistic abilities; days spent in Sylum’s library, poring over tomes of skill descriptions; and nights penning out short essays for my Policy and Ethics class. My nose twitched as I thought back to the various spellbooks I’d used and the clouds of dust they burst into when finished.

I didn’t stop there, either, stretching my memories back to my time on Earth. There were all the therapy notes I’d review before my sessions. Before then, I recalled all the times I’d nearly ripped my hair out in the university library as I finished my Masters program, and just as many before then in undergrad. 

Further back, I traveled, bringing to mind every instance in which I’d ever written, read, or drawn: an art camp my parents had signed me up for one summer; the time in elementary school they’d made us all learn cursive; hell, even a few calligraphy videos I’d watched online out of boredom. The scent of paper, parchment, vellum, papyrus. The black stains on my fingers from all my attempts to make different types of ink.

When at last every memory and sensation was wrung out of me, the blueprints in my hands were complete, the system rendering its judgment on my efforts.

Designed building quality: Good

Schematic materials: Standard

Design skills: Standard

That alone was a far cry from where I’d begun, and without proper training, I was pretty proud of that basic “Standard” for my design skills. Even with the skill’s assistance, it was likely as good as I’d get without some proper training. Those lines had nothing on the actual output of my efforts, however.

Final blueprint: Scrivener’s Sanctum…

A haven for all who would put ink to paper. Erecting this structure in your soul elevates your writing to an art form. Gain moderate bonuses to the strength and growth speed of all writing-related skills, with a focus on those that produce documents, blueprints, recipes, and other system-recognized writings. Gain lesser bonuses to related or derivative skills which incorporate paper and/or writing instruments, such as drawing, origami, or paper-mache…

The description continued on, but even the first half was a larger boon than I’d been expecting. Admittedly, it looked like I hadn’t quite succeeded at fully rolling in my Drawing skill, but that hadn’t been my major focus. My main goal was to double down on Architecture. It was tricky to figure out which skills were important enough to cement into my soul, but for whatever I chose, I’d need to make a suitable blueprint. In that case, why not build something that would set me up for all the future building plans I’d make?

In fairness, it wasn’t perfect. Architecture was more than drawing and writing, and I hadn’t included anything about my math or construction knowledge. In fact, a Construction-related blueprint might be what I went for next. This, however, was a good start. Plus, I’d had a secondary reason for this exact blueprint.

The form it ended up taking on wasn’t quite a library, nor was it an office or even a study, instead taking elements from all three of those and mashing them together. Books lined rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves. Rich wooden desks lay covered in neatly stacked reams of paper. Documents were efficiently tucked away in drawers and filing cabinets.

The entire thing reeked of organization. Diligence. Exactly the sort of things that I wanted to rub off on me.

And wildly enough, it looked like they might.

The Scrivener’s Sanctum is an organizational paradise, particularly suited for those with perfect memories. While such beings cannot technically “forget” anything, that is entirely separate from recalling what they know at every waking moment. The sanctum allows the user to set reminders, create to-do lists, and examine copies of any agreements or oaths they’ve entered into. Never forget a friend’s birthday again, and never let your tasks linger on, unfulfilled.

The user may experience minor changes to their personality and behavior, including increased forethought and planning, a desire to stay on top of their tasks, and more organized thought processes.

That should have been scary, I knew. Who wanted to mess around with their mind? Who wanted to accept something that would change their personality? Except, for me, that ship had already sailed a long time ago. The Tess of today wasn’t the same Tess from Earth, or even the same Tess from Sylum. Of course, that was partly from all the changes to mind, the destruction and subsequent rebuilding of my mental space, but it was more than that.

Everybody changed. “No man ever steps into the same river twice,” or whatever it was that that one old Greek guy said. Every day, I was already changing. If I could do so in a more directed, intentional way -- a way that would keep me from repeating my past mistakes -- why wouldn’t I?

Only the final paragraph of the description drew a slight wince from me.

This is a permanent but upgradable structure. Future compatible blueprints may be used to enhance the effects of this building, however, attempting to fully remove it may result in damage to your mind and soul.

The exact extent of that damage, it didn’t say, nor was I sure if it would be temporary or permanent. I was slightly comforted by the thought that it couldn’t possibly be worse than the destruction of my Stygian Citadel, but the sub-text was clear: I should only build the Scrivener’s Sanctum if I was confident I really wanted to keep it there. Perhaps I’d be able to tear it down if I really needed to, but I shouldn’t count on it.

But after all, that was exactly why I’d made the blueprint. I was confident it was exactly what I needed. Actually building it would probably take quite some time, but once again, I had nothing if not a lot of time.

“Second project, successful,” I announced to no one. It wasn’t quite as showy as the marble hydra, but I was ultimately more than satisfied with how it had turned out.

Now, aside from my repeated failures to draw what I wanted to, all that remained was my more hands-on final. And while I was still figuring out exactly what I wanted the end result to look like, I knew exactly where to start.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Back when I’d first asked Sett to help me learn Enchanting, he’d created a set of example enchantment matrices for me as a sort of self-study course guide, four metal spheres and two disks. All six of them were labeled with the approximate levels of Enchanting I’d need to copy them, save for the last of the six which just read “bonus.”

I’d already worked through the first three spheres, the ones labeled “1-5,” “5-8,” and “8-10”. The first was a basic matrix for the Illumination spell that required the caster to manually push light mana through the metal. The second had a “pull” addon that automated all the mana manipulation after you manually pushed some external mana into it. The third included a mana converter which would transform neutral mana into light mana.

Recreating that last one had been tricky, but eventually I’d managed the frost version of it to make all the frost converters Verin needed back when she was sick. Past that, I hadn’t tackled the last three yet. Based on the suggested levels attached to each, though, it was about time I did. The fourth sphere was labeled “10-15”, and all the frost converters I’d made for Verin had pushed me to the Initiate rank of Enchanting. A single additional level from random hobby enchanting had pushed me to level 11.

By now, I’d at least looked at the remaining example matrices, and each of them had an obvious purpose.

The last sphere made the spell activation even easier. Instead of needing to manually thread external mana into the matrix, it somehow connected to the system, letting the wearer activate it with a thought and a bit of internal mana. It was clear why it was the last of the four spheres, as the additional pattern required was both bizarre and intricate. Frankly, I was half-convinced that the grand magus had mislabeled his examples, as the two disks seemed much more straightforward.

The purpose of the first was given away by its shape: The standard spellform for Illumination was a woven spherical pattern. Somehow, the grand magus had managed to squish and stretch it into a disk shape. I imagined this was a pretty important lesson to learn unless I wanted all my enchanted items to be big spheres. In the same vein, the “bonus” disk was identical to the first, but the spellform was halved in size.

One for stretching, one for shrinking. That couldn’t be too hard, could it?

I cast Illumination, clamping down on the spell while it was still within my body. Directing my manipulation skills to the top and bottom of the spell, I pushed.

Immediately, the threads deformed and the spell dissipated, forcing a grunt from my lips as the haywire mana kicked me right in my core.

Backlash Resistance has reached level 4!

Damn. Okay. Maybe not so easy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

After my Enchanting setback, part of me wanted to cop out and just make the best quality enchantment I could using everything I’d already mastered. If I was my own teacher, though, I’d only give that project a solid C. It felt… lazy.

Instead, over and over, I tried to twist my mana into the shapes required by my training guides. It helped that I could practice within my body, not requiring me to forge an actual metal matrix shell and allowing me to use my higher-ranked internal mana manipulation. My relatively new Backlash Resistance was also a godsend, as the failed Illuminations were barely worth notice compared to the pain from my first attempted demon summoning.

Advanced Internal Mana Manipulation has reached level 19! 

With a high enough manipulation skill, I wouldn’t even need to try pushing and pulling on my spells -- I could just directly weave my mana into the proper shape from the get-go. Sadly, I was still far from being that accomplished.

No, in the end, my breakthrough was less one of skill and more one of technique. Pushing on a spell after I’d already formed it? Painfully tough. Every attempt ended in a backlash. Pushing before, on the other hand, worked pretty well. 

That was, before I even started casting the spell, I used my manipulation to create a sandwiching force around my core. Only then did I call upon the system, letting it help me cast Illumination. The spell wove itself within the pressurized region, forming squished from the start.

Of course, then I had to keep it like that. The moment I removed the pressure, the spell tried to spring back into its proper shape, either fouling my work or outright destabilizing the spell. Maintaining it was easy enough while I kept it in place, a bit harder as I moved it within my body, and then downright impossible the moment I forced it outside my body.

Still, with a viable path forward, I felt energized. Throwing myself into the manipulation exercises the grand magus had given me, I tried to close the gap between my internal and external manipulation skills.

External Intrinsic Mana Manipulation has reached level 15!

Intermittently, I also tried forming the shrunken version of the spell, and it was easy to see why Sett had labeled this last example “bonus.” Two sandwiching forces wasn’t all that hard, but to form a shrunken version, I needed an equal application of force from every direction. Making it even the least bit unequal caused the mana to gush out in a single direction, resulting in a far worse backlash than the usual reshaping failures.

It was at some point during all of these mana exercises that I realized exactly what I wanted to make. It would be a bit less technically impressive from a Smithing standpoint, but the more I thought about it, the more excited I grew, which was how I knew I’d landed on a winner.

Realizing I was missing one last puzzle piece, I took the time to pay Sett another visit, grabbing the converter patterns for the rest of the basic manas. I’d still only seen the frost and light versions, after all. Thankfully, the grand magus was much more agreeable after our last conversation, and he barely grumbled at all as he made me examples of each. In the following days, I practiced all nine until I could make them reliably. 

In between my converter practice and my efforts to further level my manipulation skills, I got started on the forging portion. The base metal, for once, was largely unimportant here, so I skipped the magic metals, using white gold instead. With how much time I’d spent making rings, it was tough to switch things up, but I did my best to curl the pliable, hot metal into a thick but tiny chain link. From there, I repeated the process until I had a full circle of gleaming chains.

With the easy part done, I moved onto the true test. To start, I melted down some mithril, transferring it to a mold I’d carved out of mana-enriched incidium. Unlike my standard enchanting molds, though, this one was much smaller and shaped into a short cylinder. Squeezing a band of force around my mana core, I started to cast Illumination, the compressed space forcing the spellform to grow vertically. I nearly lost control as I pushed it from my body, but I barely managed to guide the spell into the molten mithril.

When the mithril cooled down, hardening, I was greeted with a successful crafting notification, but as I looked at the cylinder, I couldn’t help but frown.

Not nearly small enough.

That was fine, though. After all, this was just the first attempt.

Over the next week, I made matrices in every shape I could: cubes, spheres, cones and pyramids, abstract squiggles that led into dodecahedrons. Well, not actually on that last one, but the point stood. Slowly, I got better at condensing my spells, applying force from every direction and then different the levels of those forces to both shrink and reshape at the same time.

Enchanting has reached level 12!

External Intrinsic Mana Manipulation has reached level 16!

It was by no means a mastered skill, and the amount I could shrink each spell by was pretty pitiful, but it was progress all the same. Having recently hit level 19 in my internal manipulation, I desperately trained to eke out the final level, but I’d gained the last too recently. When finally I accepted I’d be getting no better without weeks to train, I grumbled but moved on.

Some of the matrices, I messed with directly, carefully cutting into them while making sure to avoid the mana channels inside. Extra bits of pre-shaped metal were welded onto the sides, and here and there, I inlaid some precious metals to depressions I’d carved out. More times than I cared to admit, these additions ended up breaking the delicate matrix inside, and I was forced to restart.

As a bonus, I even got to use my Glassmaking. Using the metallic enchantments as cores, I encased them in glass beads, for the first time trying to branch out from basic glass panes. Much like I’d done before, I used various metal shavings and ground up plants to alter the colors of the glass, only letting it cool with a thread of mana inside of it to leave an opening to the matrix. From there, I added small clasps to each of my creations.

When it was all said and done, I ended up with only five workable enchantments, each of them shaped differently. In a simple teardrop of blue glass was the spellform for Conjure Water. A fully metallic incidium flame housed Flameploof. Shining copper was hammered into the familiar form of a blocky Ore Munchling, its interior hiding the spellweave for Summon Pebble. A skull, sculpted from obsinite, was the obvious symbol for Pest-Killing Aura. Lastly, a chunky little glass bird had swallowed the matrix for Gust.

As for the rest of my cantrips, they couldn’t be turned into enchantments, as they all required a target, which I still hadn’t figured out how to encode in enchantment form. 

With a bit of fanfare, I clipped all five of the trinkets onto my chain. It technically wasn’t fully complete, as such a thing never could be, but I gave the system the go-ahead nonetheless.

Congratulations! You have crafted an item: Cantrip Charm “Bracelet”.

I beheld the bracelet in all its glory, pride welling up in my chest as I instantly came to the same conclusion that the system did.

Quality: Poor

To put it frankly, it was ugly. 

More than that, it was huge.

The inspiration for the piece was the humble charm bracelet, and while I’d never been a huge jewelry girl back on Earth, I recalled wearing such a bracelet all the way back in high school for a while. After getting an initial set of charms, I hadn’t ever swapped them out or bought new ones, but in theory, one could, which was a large part of the reason I’d made one now.

The five charms I’d made weren’t awful. With how little experience I had with small stylistic work, both in Smithing and Glassmaking, they weren’t great, either. A little childish-looking, honestly. Still, they would have been passable if not for one glaring detail.

They were much, much too large.

While I’d managed to shrink my spells down a teeny bit, that meant that they were a bit larger than my fist. Once I added the surrounding metal and glass, that size only ballooned, too. The “bracelet” had to be just as large to match, which effectively turned it into a necklace. Even then, just one of the trinkets would make the necklace look like a statement piece, like one of those chains with the big dollar sign hanging off of it. All five together? The jewelry was effectively unwearable.

Naturally, this level of craftsmanship didn’t earn me a named item or any fancy effects, but for all of that, I was feeling strangely upbeat about it all.

Because, sure, objectively speaking, it was a dumpster fire. Way worse than the ring I’d made Verin. But at the same time, it was aspirational.

The nature of the charms meant I could swap them out. In a month, how much smaller could I make my enchantments? In a year? Five? While it was a bracelet in name only right now, I’d given myself a good way to track my progress. If perhaps that made the test more of a midterm than a final, that was fine.

Which makes sense. I haven’t really gotten everything I can out of the dungeon yet.

Despite my technically poor showing, I felt reenergized as I left my workshop, ready to finish my final project.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For Drawing, there was no flashy setup. I didn’t try to make mana-enriched paper or enchanted ink. I had no desire to make anything system-recognized or magical in any way, really. It was just my stylus and some basic paper and a hundred attempts to get things exactly right.

As such, there was no pageantry or fanfare when the lines and curves finally submitted themselves to my will. No notification outside of a single well-earned level to Drawing. Relative to the rest of my projects, it was a simple affair, yet somehow it meant the most.

I know exactly what I’m going to do with this. Not ready quite yet, I tucked it away in storage.

And then, just like that, my finals were over. I’d been using the tests as a way to delay things for a while, but there was no holding off anymore. 

Cal, and even Verin to a lesser degree, were starting to bring up resuming our journey, throwing ourselves into the rest of the dungeon to destroy the remaining two crystals. Once they knew I was done with my self-imposed tests, they’d surely start growing more insistent.

And so, I beat them to the punch. Right as the three of us finished dinner, I hit them with the news, uttering a single sentence that would signal the end of our time together in the dungeon.

“So, I talked with Sett, and I think I have a way to send us home.”