4.5 Eureka

Surprise sunday drop! I actually managed to get some writing done this weekend, so you're getting a third post for the week after all. Cheers!

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“It’s not about the story,” Uriah said defensively. “It’s about context! This was written by someone who thought of sorcerers the same way a random person off the street here would think about mages or druids or something. They don’t really understand anything about it, but think about it! Anybody off the street here knows about the sorts of things that mages do. They know what a spell is, how we dress, what kinds of jobs we do – what our role in society is.” He shook the book at Bernt. “It’s the same thing here.”

Grudgingly, Bernt nodded, conceding the point. That was pretty much exactly the sort of information he’d been trying to get out of Song just hours earlier – it would be hypocritical to discount Uriah just because he didn’t have a cultivator to talk to. 

“You’re right, sorry,” he apologized. “What did you discover?”

Uriah returned to flipping through the book. “A couple of things, actually. For one, their sorcerers seem very focused on using magic to enhance their own bodies – almost as if they’re enchanting themselves. The way it’s written just casually assumes that a normal spellcaster would be as enhanced as an elite rank 10 frontliner. More, maybe.”

Bernt’s eyes widened. “Really? That much?”

He had a basic idea of how body cultivation worked, in the sense that it involved using your spirit to directly infuse your body with mana. His own spirit made him more like a fire elemental. He would have expected someone like Song to simply have an aeromancer’s version of what he did. A properly enhanced frontliner was something else entirely. Someone like branchmaster Ambrose from the Halfbridge Adventurers’ Guild could probably trade punches with an ogre and come out on top. If cultivators could really do that… well, he’d believe it when he saw it.

“Yes, but it is fiction.” Uriah hedged, seeing the skepticism on Bernt’s face. “The process even sounds like it’s part alchemy, with herbs and baths and purified magical pills of some kind, but there’s no telling how much of that is real and how much is just the author making things up. External spellcasting, on the other hand, is treated as though it were highly advanced and impressive. It might be a difference in where they focus their development.”

“Huh… okay” Bernt allowed. “What do they call it?”

Uriah grimaced and flushed. “Gardening of the spirit, or corporeal gardening for the enhancements. I told you it’s not a good translation – it probably sounds better in their own language.”

“Body cultivation.” Bernt corrected, unable to keep the surprise out his voice. It was talking about the same process as Song had been earlier. At Uriah’s questioning expression, he explained, “I think it probably refers to the way that sorcerers grow their manifested spirits out from a central point – like training the growing branches of a tree.”

Uriah gave him a strange look. “I… guess? It sounds better, at least. How did you know?”

Right. The others didn’t know about Song, and unless Iriala had gotten and passed along the full story from Jori, they wouldn’t know the details of what had happened to him in the Phoenix Reaches, either. Bernt took a breath to respond, but Uriah cut him off.

“Wait! That was the other thing I found – I think your method for accessing sorcery might be flawed.” Finally finding the page he’d been looking for, Uriah turned the book around to show Bernt. “See, there it is! The ‘soul spring’ it talks about – where the manifested soul grows out from. This is what we were trying to figure out about the salamander from the research notes in Gobford! It’s how it could consume magical materials. You need a centerpoint in your spirit that’s designed to absorb new power and make it yours, like a ‘stomach investiture’ of some sort.

Bernt grinned. “I figured that out, too, but it’s always nice to get independent confirmation.” He dug a bit of chalk out of his pocket and began to draw a basic diagnostic circle directly on the worn wooden table. “I haven’t told you what I’ve learned since I went to the Phoenix Reaches. Let me catch you up.”

As quickly as he could, he explained his observations of the giant fire ant’s spirit in the Phoenix Reaches and recounted the events surrounding his summoning ritual at the confluence. He left out the part where the fire elemental walked away wearing a pretty good approximation of his face cast in burning plasma, but went into detail about the effects that the elemental’s actions had had on his spirit. Then he recounted his encounter with Song and what he’d learned from the cultivator so far.

As he finished, Bernt put his right hand into the diagnostic circle, allowing a projection of his mana network to form above it. The shape of the perpetual flame investiture was still clear, but the hundreds of hair-thin channels that fed into his flesh were impossible to miss. 

“As far as I can tell, the elemental modified my spirit to be more like its own – what it considered  ‘normal’ – except that its spirit is its body so it sort of… tied them together? I’m totally immune to heat and fire, and if I drink water without pinching at least most of those little channels off, it’ll boil right out of my mouth. I discovered that little problem with a healing potion, and I wouldn’t recommend that to anybody.”

Uriah stared at him with a horrified look on his face, mouth hanging slightly open. Then he closed his eyes and rubbed at his face.

“I knew you were reckless, Bernt, but… you traded a portion of your spirit away to an elemental? Are you even still… you?”

Bernt sighed. He’d known that part was going to lead to some uncomfortable questions. “I wasn’t exactly in a great state of mind at the time, but I’m still pretty sure I would have died if I hadn’t agreed to it. The demon was already in my head. And yes, I’m still me. At least, there’s nobody new in my head that I can tell.”

The hydromancer didn’t look satisfied. To change the subject, Bernt pointed back down at the book. “Is there anything in there about how they get this ‘soul spring’ thing? Song called it the ‘spiritual sea’, and he made it sound like it’s hereditary. Considering what happened to me, though, I’m pretty sure that there are several ways to create it. They’re incredibly complex, and the mana flows… oh… oh! That’s it!” Bernt smacked himself on the forehead. “It was right in front of me, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before! If we can figure this out, we can fix you up. You could start developing your spirit again!”

Uriah shook his head, confused. “No I couldn’t. My flawed investiture would still interfere with my spellcasting. You said your sorcery incorporates your existing mage investiture with every spell. My tangent would scramble any kind of sorcery I tried to cast. It would be a total waste of time, and might make it even worse.”

“No, it won’t!” Bernt grinned, “The spiritual sea… wait, no, I’ll show you. Can you get up and back away for a second? I don’t want to draw out a whole other diagnostic circle.” 

Uriah looked even more confused, but he did so. Bernt bent down over the table face down, centering his belly over the rune circle. The position felt a little awkward, but he didn’t care right now.

“Look at the projection! Do you see it?”

“See what?” came Uriah’s voice a little impatiently. “Your spirit is a mess, there’s no deciphering anything out of that.”

“Just pick a spot and start tracing the mana flow through. You’ll get it.”

Uriah sighed and grumbled under his breath. “It’s all knotted up, how am I supposed to…” he trailed off, finally noticing something. “Wait. That’s a tangent, and here... There are multiple tangents in here. What am I looking at? How are you able to cast at all?”

Bernt grinned down at the floor. “It has a bunch of them, and the mana flows are completely smooth. I can even pinch off the flow through one channel or another without causing chaotic interference anywhere else. It’s much more complex than any investiture you could hope to make yourself, like a heart with blood vessels and veins that create many small loops in a larger system. There are many redundant ways for the mana to cycle through. In theory, each one would modify my spells somehow, but I haven’t fully tested it. The first time I really used it the effects were a bit… concerning. For you, though…”

“It means that I should be able to find a way to ‘pinch’ off the flow of mana to my flawed investiture.” Uriah interrupted finished, his voice growing hoarse as he talked. “My spells would lose a little power, but it wouldn’t matter. I could attempt to grow as a sorcerer, or even add new normal investitures. I could even add a corrected duplicate of the flawed one to complete the augmentation I planned originally.”

A door opened somewhere and Bernt looked up to see Torvald walk in, followed by a slightly unsteady-looking Olias. The paladin took in the scene of Bernt bent over the table and Uriah standing next to him, a finger still poking at the glowing projection hovering over his back. He raised an eyebrow. “What are you guys doing?” 

***

Bernt sipped on a mug of ale, enjoying its full flavor as Uriah animatedly caught the others up on what they’d just realized. The hydromancer’s usually more reserved attitude had given way to pure excitement – an emotion he’d never expected to see from the man. 

“Even if we never manage to replicate the sorts of things the Mirian natives can do, we can develop our own style of sorcery that incorporates traditional magecraft to make up for our lack of a sorcerous tradition.” He waved the worn romance novel at Olias. “At least we have a little background information to show us, in general, what sorts of things are possible. I told you this was going to be useful!”

Olias snorted. “Yes, yes. The enthusiastic recommendation of that young woman surely had nothing to do with your willingness to give it a chance.”

Uriah flushed, but he didn’t protest.

“I don’t want to put a damper on your excitement,” Bernt said, putting down the mug, “but we don’t actually know how to turn you into a sorcerer yet – not one with a spiritual sea. I mean, I guess we could try to summon a powerful water elemental or something, if you want. Do you want to try that? We’d need to find a confluence with an elemental that’s likely to be compatible with your existing investitures. As far as I know, that would mean going down to the Kallrixian coast at least.”

The hydromancer grimaced. “Ah… not just yet. I don’t know that I want to travel all the way to Kallrix right now. Besides, we should see if there are safer options first. There might be more clues in the book, and I want to try to talk to your cultivator friend. I know you said he doesn’t want to share any secrets, but… well, I still want to ask.”

“Fair enough.” Bernt said with a shrug. “ But if we don’t cut any corners on the summoning circle, it shouldn’t be too dangerous. And you don’t have to trade it your…”  he hesitated and then finished in a more subdued tone, “what I traded.” Torvald and Uriah both already knew what had happened, but Bernt didn’t necessarily want to trust Olias with that. People already thought he was a warlock – he didn’t need rumors to spread that he’d traded his soul for power.

Uriah drummed his fingers on the book as if he couldn’t wait to start reading again. 

Olias, who had followed the exchange with the air of someone who was just waiting for them to shut up, took a sip of his wine and turned to Torvald.

“So, now that we’re here – what’s all this about the Temple of Noruk trying to hang the deaths of a bunch of priests on you? Didn’t I tell you not to get involved in politics?”

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Quick question for the audience: I intended to, but ultimately didnt' find a spot to organically include what the goblins and Estrid are up to so far. Does this feel like an annoying oversight at this point, or is it still fine if this gets answered later?