FMH ~ 17!

Taylor sent a fireball spinning toward the fleeing Fear, the spider-shaped spellform screeching as it dropped to the ground and tried to put out the flames. Taylor grumbled as she stalked toward it. “Oh, sure, imagine that. You’re almost tall enough to reach my shin, and you’re afraid of fire.”

Mana: 143/165

The Fear crumbled, leaving behind a puddle of ink and a few pages of high-quality vellum. She grabbed the vellum before her book could and promised it as a treat later. “That should be just enough…”

A month had passed since her close brush with death at the hands of the Nulli-fly, and she had been unleashed upon the unsuspecting denizens of this world to release some steam. “Current Potentia.”

Current Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 310/500 to level 4!

“Excellent, that was worth even more than I thought it would be.” With a gesture, her Grimoire released her Nullify spell and it swirled up and out until it was a large butterfly shape once more. “Increase Nulli-fly to level three.”

Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 10/500 to level 4! 

Spell: Nullify has reached level three! 0/500 potentia needed for the spell to reach level four!

Level increase effect: Nullify now lasts for 6.5 seconds after activation! Cooldown period: 24 hours. Effective cooldown: 23.1 hours.

“Ugh… just… why couldn’t he explain why the cooldown is reduced? ‘The sub-characteristics each control one and a half aspects of your growth, figure out what they are’!” Taylor mocked Master Don and dismissed the spell information, and it sank back into her book. “I can see what they are in my paper, but they don’t mean anything to me! Know what? Forget him for now, it’s time to get stronger. Fireball is at level two, and Shatter is at level three, so it is time to focus on me!”

Rhyming and wordplay helped with the fact that there was no one else around for miles in any direction. That was fine; at this point Master Don had driven into her that all other people had serious and dangerous ulterior motives. She wasn't to trust anyone, including her Master. He had proven time and again that she needed to keep things from him. If she found something impressive and showed him, Master Don would use it to make himself stronger.

Fireball (T2): 13/300 to level 3! Mana cost: 12

Effect 1: Create a ball of fire that detonates for 10 fire damage within a ten-foot sphere centered on impact. To cast, the full chant of ‘Fireball, heed my call, burn the world, burn it all’ must be used. 

Bonus 1, at range: the ball of fire can now be used at range, up to thirty feet. Damage becomes 10+5n fire damage, where n = spell level. (Starts at T2)

Shatter (T2): 0/500 to level 4! Mana cost: 10

Effect 1: Create a spike of ice that chills the target, dealing 5 ice damage and 5 force damage. To cast, the full chant of ‘Destruction, neither frost nor force, the best of both. Shatter’ must be used. 

Bonus 1, at range: the spike can now be used at range, up to twenty feet. Damage becomes 10+(2.5i+2.5f)n damage, where i = ice damage, f = force damage, and n = spell level. (Starts at T2)

A quick glance at her Grimoire helped her remember her limits. Fireball was a special type of tier two area-of-effect spell, and did five points of fire damage per level within ten feet of the impact point when it was cast properly. Since it was level two, that meant ten damage total; apparently multiplying by skill level zero still meant that there was ‘zero’ bonus damage. Shatter was a single-target spell, and dealt two-and-a-half points of both frost and force damage per level. At level three, that meant this spell did twenty-five points of total damage.

She turned back to look at the hole in the ground that Fear had crawled out of; there were almost certainly more in there. It was time to hunt. She ran along, carefully measuring her pace so that she was always going at roughly eighty percent of her maximum speed. If Taylor wanted to increase her stats naturally, she needed to take every opportunity to do so. If she had to go somewhere, she ran. If Taylor needed to kill something, she killed it with maximum efficiency. No mana was wasted if at all possible.

“Destruction, neither frost nor force, the best of both. Shatter!” A small elemental left her grimoire with the speed of a flying arrow, impacting the oversized Fear spellform that she was aiming at. The spider froze in place, literally, and then the elemental pulled. Single target, yet even more beautiful than a giant fireball. The Fear shattered - just as her attack spell implied it would - and fell to the ground. A near-invisible light of Potentia swirled into Taylor, swirling around before being filtered into her sigil.

Mana: 133/165

Taylor ran and flipped into the dark cavern, launching a fireball ahead of her. The Will O’ The Wisp that flew from her Grimoire detonated and flash-burned everything within ten feet of itself. A tortured screeching impacted Taylor almost like a physical blow as dozens of Fear-spiders started pouring out of the cave mouth. She wanted to freeze, but knew that showing her fear would empower the spellforms. Instead she landed on one, squishing it into an oozing ink-sac.

“Two… one… Fireball, heed my call, burn the world, burn it all!” The Will O’ The Wisp appeared from Taylor’s fluttering book once more, happily launching itself into the spells that were still pouring out. The fireball roasted the Fear spells with exactly as much damage as they could take. “Lord Frankfurt’s crusty nostrils, there are so many of them! Did I find a spawn point for Fear?”

Mana: 122/165

Her two offensive spells were being cast as soon as they returned to her Grimoire, what Master Don called the ‘cooldown’ period. Even so, she was having to get into closer range than she wanted. As the spiders started leaping at her, Taylor had a crazy idea. “I’ve been leveling the spell… now is as good as any time to test it!”

Having decided, Taylor sprinted into the cave mouth as fast as she could go. “Whoa! Fireball, heed my call, burn the world, burn it all!”

As she leveled the spell, she would be able to say less of the chant and have the same effect, or say the full chant and really power it up. As it was, the fireball hit everything within ten feet and burned hot. The fire at the center of the blast had turned blue, and Taylor let a cocky grin show when she saw that her path forward had been cleared.

As the last of the fire burned down, her smile vanished. A new spellform had stepped into the open area, though she only caught a glimpse of it's bulbous, grotesque shape as the fire puttered out.

*Screee*!

“What was that?” Taylor abandoned her previous plan and turned to run. That creature kind of looked like a Fear, but it was as tall as she was and had a monstrous body. It seemed like a combination of a spider and a wood tick, and she was not going after it alone. Too bad for her that the thing didn’t share the same sentiment. 

A weight took her to the ground, but the spellform didn't actually touch her. Just before the thing would have landed on her, a klaxon call sounded and Taylor was surrounded by a swarm of tiny Nulli-flies. It seemed her plan had worked after all. “Six and a half seconds to destroy this thing!” She popped to her feet and turned on the beast. It was heavily damaged, as any part that had touched her had been nullified. Fear spells started throwing themselves at her, falling to pieces as they got into range.

“Get over here, time to gain some Potentia! Destruction, neither frost nor force, the best of both. Shatter!” Taylor wasn't certain why some of these spell chants seemed nonsensical, but she suspected that her Grimoire translated them into her language so that she could use them correctly. 

Mana: 101/165

Her elemental raced from just above her head, slamming into the large beast and seeming to do very little damage. Yikes… shatter was tier two,  level three; it should have wreaked anything in this area. There was only one thing that she could think of to try. She dived into the creature and allowed her nullify spell to eat away at it. It was sliced in half just as her protection wore off. Breathing heavily, she waited for the rush of Potentia, but felt nothing.

“It’s not dead!” She scrambled away, looking at the creature fearfully. It’s head was separate from the body, but the jaw was still opening and closing. “Wait… it isn’t dead!”

Taylor released a small stream of directed mana, allowing it to waft into the face of the creature. She was down to nearly half mana, but that was fine with her; it was regenerating quickly. The spellform shifted in her sight and the new information started to make sense to her. “You’re… Mass Hysteria? I name you as-”

*Splat*!

The connection cut off, and Taylor screamed as she saw her Grimoire lifting from the crushed head of the now fully dead spellform. “Why would you do that?”

‘Mass Hysteria, spell usage. Upon cast, create a node of hysteria that casts fear spells into other creatures within range.’

Taylor read the words on the page of the book, not losing her glare. “So? That seems really useful!”

‘Mind Disease,’ the Grimoire explained in text, ‘Disease is disease. I refuse disease. You want I leave?’

“No. Stay.” She was still fuming, but Taylor reluctantly allowed that the book had a point. “Fine. But what if I get a self-casting spell that does something like cast lightning? I want that sort of power!”

‘Fear. Affliction/debuff.’ The text scrawled across an otherwise blank page. ‘Disease. Affliction/debuff. Bad. Not tasty. Chain lightning. Destruction/direct damage. Good. Nummy.’

“Well, I’m glad to know where you draw the line.” Taylor snarled as she sat down into a small puddle of ink. Her Cleanse spell was really getting a workout today.

‘Line is drawn between words Affliction and debuff. Is known in general language as a forward-slash.’ the Grimoire informed her helpfully.

“Thanks, Grim.” Taylor wanted to drop her head into her hands, but there were likely Fears in the area still. Getting eaten and broken down into base mana because she was mad about the inability of a book to understand sarcasm would have been beyond embarrassing.

Her Grimoire, liking the name ‘Grim’ flapped to her head and rested on it like a hat. “Hey, that’s bad for your spine! You should close fully.”

It ignored her, and Taylor didn't bother to force the issue. She had other things to look at anyway. “Current exp.”

Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 670/500 to level 4! 

You are able to increase in level! Do so now? Yes / No.

“What in the…! How did I gain so much Potentia?” Taylor meant it rhetorically, but was given an answer anyway.

Accessing combat logs… 

23 Fear (T1) defeated: 460 exp.

1 Mass Hysteria (T4) defeated: 100 exp.

Spawn point cleared and captured! This was an unknown spawn point. Bonus Potentia gained from absorbing all ambient Potentia accumulated within unknown place of power: 100 exp.

Add spawn point to kingdom records? Bonus exp will be granted. Yes / No. 

“No, add only to personal records.” She ignored the last question. Why would she give up the information to an awesome training spot? That’d just be stupid. Instead Taylor started thinking about what she should do with this unexpected windfall. Clearly she was going to level up, but where to put the points? “Mind is the best bet, of course… but… Naming. I almost had that spell, I could feel it. I couldn’t get all the fine details though. I need better senses.”

Taylor knew that Don had a plan for her development, but she really, really wanted to test her theory. She was certain that her ability as a Namer would allow her to bypass the requirements that higher spells demanded. So what if she didn't have enough presence to cow a Volcano spell? If she could get its true name, it would be hers either way.

Plus… it would be nice to have at least a small way to rebel against Master Don. Decision made, she agreed to level. The point went into the Mental Energy sub-category, bringing her Senses total up to six-point-six, and for a long moment the world was dark. Her eyes popped open and locked on a hairy leg that was slowly extending around the corner and found a Fear inching toward her through the darkness. She smiled widely; the low light wasn't nearly as much an issue as it had been only a few minutes ago.

She had made the right decision. Maybe not for Master Don, but for her. “Fireball, heed my call…!”