Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Enchantment and Exploration

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Enchantment and Exploration

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“They call me Deathbringer,” the silver-haired ljósálfar whispered into my ear just before she placed the blade over my chest. “I wonder, what will they call you, child of man?”

These were the last vestiges of my recurring nightmare before I felt the hard slap on my cheek. I woke up with a start, my eyes darting left and then right in sudden alertness.

No, I wasn’t in that dark place anymore; that ‘temple of doom’ where the wailing of my fellow sacrifices continued long after they’d been murdered. I was back on the second floor of Lugh’s Lament and Liara was leaning over me with a hand raised and ready to slap me again.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she said casually. As if slapping someone awake was the normal thing to do. “You were having another nightmare.”

“I don’t get good dreams.” I sat up and rubbed my cheek. “Yowza, did you have to slap me that hard?”

Liara shrugged. “You look like you’ve got a troll’s extra-thick skin, so…”

“Can’t argue with you there.” I chuckled while remembering Divah’s usual complaint of how I had thick skin when it came to flyting. “So, how long was I out?”

“Nearly forty minutes,” she answered.

Liara got up from her seat in that graceful cat-like manner elves do, which was when Morph McMorbid dropped by to ask her if she was willing to help him with an enchantment.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” the infernal cast an apologetic sideways glance at me before continuing, “but the cue for enchantment’s very long, and I… I don’t think my shield will survive another fight without enchantments…”

To mine and Morph’s surprise, Liara agreed to help him out without setting a price beforehand. What a waste of an opportunity.

“What sort of enchantment are you looking for?” she asked in a nice tone she’d never-ever given me before.

Morph tapped a finger against the front side of his kite shield. “The last battle weakened its runes. Could you, um, reapply them?”

Liara spent a few seconds inspecting the rune scrawled on the shield’s iron surface before nodding. “Sure, this seems easy enough.”

“It is?” I asked. “Hold on, is enchanting a profession required to specialize as a spell-blade enchanter?”

Liara gave me a look that said ‘Duh’ before sitting back down next to me and taking her toolkit out of her backpack.

“Uh, I don’t suppose you know a rune that’ll make it weigh less too?” Morph asked as he handed her his shield.

“I don’t know any novice enchanter who can do something that convenient,” Liara answered.

The thing is, I had a rune that would do exactly what Morph asked for inside Divah’s guide, although I wasn’t ready to share the guide’s enchanting secrets with Liara just yet. Maybe never.

I watched with interest as she laid Morph’s shield on the stone floor front-up next to her kit.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Wisdom?” she asked.

“Nope,” I said. “Continue.”

She sighed but didn’t try to shoo me away. Instead, Liara focused on selecting the tools she would need to reapply the ‘Algiz’ rune on the shield’s iron surface. Yep, I recognized the rune as it was the same one painted on my bronze wristbands.

The rune—which was shaped like a person with both hands raised in a V-shape—was the Elder Futhark’s basic symbol of protection and would have provided Morph’s shield with a defensive coating strong enough to block one or two tier-one spells.

I pointed at the small round jar Liara just placed on the ground. “What’s in that?”

“Goblin blood,” she answered.

“I hear that stuff’s cheap,” I commented. “Will it be a strong enough catalyst?”

She frowned at the word ‘cheap’ but answered my question anyway. “Any kind of monster blood will do. The differences are insignificant unless you compare it with premium-grade stuff like red dragon ichor or unicorn silver blood.”

“Why don’t you use that then?” I asked on Morph’s behalf. Although the frail-looking infernal didn’t seem to mind getting the cheaper option.

“A small jar of dragon ichor costs as much as a leaf boat,” Liara answered.

To the non-realm traveler, a leaf boat—those ships made of Yggdrasil’s hardened leaves that float on clouds—costs about as much as a top-tier luxury car. So, yeah, these dragon ichor jars were expensive as Hel.

“We could use your blood too, McMorbid”—Liara glanced sideways at him—“and it may strengthen your connection to the rune.”

“Um, no”—Morph was shaking his head—“I-I’m okay with goblin’s blood.”

Liara stared pointedly at me next. “What about you, Wisdom?”

“My blood’s too rich for just a protection rune,” I chuckled.

The she-elf rolled her eyes at me.

Liara began tracing a swirl of patterns in the air with her fingers as if she were committing them to memory first. Interestingly enough, the pattern she carved out of the air wasn’t anything like a simple algiz rune’s design. 

“You want to ask, so ask,” she stated suddenly.

Well, I wasn’t one to turn down an invitation to learn stuff, so I did ask. “What are you doing?”

“Visual checks are an important step to enchanting,” she answered. “A single mistake, a wrong verse, or an incorrect pattern could mean a faulty enchantment that keeps one from advancement.” 

When Liara finished with her mental prep, she picked up her pen and wiped its crystal tip with a piece of cloth.

“Is that a zirconia tip?” Morph asked.

“You know your stuff.” Liara smiled at him, even though she was treating me like a nuisance. Sheesh, females.

“Beginner Professions is my favorite class,” he replied in a shy tone, although it would be hard to tell if his cheeks had gone red as his skin was already naturally crimson. “But why choose zirconia?”

“Because it’s inexpensive,” Liara answered.

I was beginning to think that Liara’s home circumstances weren’t the sunshine and rainbows I initially thought she had. Perhaps being a halfbreed made her life more challenging than the privileged ljósálfar usually gets.

After she thoroughly cleaned her pen, Liara dipped it into the jar of goblin’s blood and then began tracing a pattern on Morph’s shield with the steady hand of a practiced swordswoman. And, once she finished the design now emblazoned on Morph’s shield, both infernal and I couldn’t help but gasp in awe.

Liara had painted a complicated, but powerful symbol of protection on Morph’s shield; the algiz rune in the center of a wheel with four spokes shaped like keys surrounded by eight smaller circles forming a round pattern of interconnected locks—a Celtic knot—all encased in a larger circle of protection.

“Wow,” Morph breathed. While my reaction was a little more inquisitive. “The spokes of an aegishjalmur, the rings of a Celtic knot, and a banded circle of protection… where did you learn such a complicated arcane array that increases both the algiz rune’s output and longevity?”

Liara raised an eyebrow at my analysis, which I knew was a pretty accurate one. Nothing gets by me when it comes to runes.

“I…” she hesitated, but eventually relented. “I thought it up myself.”

“You are amazing,” I said, grinning. Yep, I’d chosen my partner well. Fine, Dwalinn picked Liara to be my guide, I guess, but I got points for recognizing her potential right away.  

The elf maiden’s cheeks flared as red as apples while Morph did his best to look like something far away had caught his interest.

“Ah, I didn’t mean it like…” I was blushing now too. Stupid teenage misunderstandings.

In the awkward silence that followed, we waited for the ink to dry and the telltale glow of a successful enchantment to come and go. Once that was over, Liara passed Morph back his shield, which he hefted easier than when we were fighting sluagh earlier.

“Th-this custom enchantment’s making my shield hum!” Morph was staring at his shield with awe. “Um, how much do I owe you?”

Liara raised a single hand. “Two sceattas will do just fine for this first piece, but the next one will cost you more… and I wouldn’t say no to you advertising my work.”

“R-really?” Morph looked uncomfortable. “But this is good work… the attention to detail and the neatness in the lines, it’s so refined and—”

“She knows,” I answered for Liara.

Wow, that must have been the most words I’d ever heard spill from the infernal’s lips. He was that happy with her work.

“Don’t waste her investment, Morph,” I added.

A solemn expression flashed on Morph’s face when he said, “I won’t,” and then he was off running back to Team Six while leaving me alone with the she-elf who was now pointedly staring at me.

“Shouldn’t I have been the one to tell him that?” Liara frowned.  

“Well, I didn’t want all those compliments to go to your head or anything,” I shrugged. Then I got up and added, “Two sceattas, huh… why the charity?”

As I helped Liara pack her things, I listened to her explain that I’d rubbed off on her a little. “You’re not the only one who craves stronger rivals to fight or allies to adventure with, Wisdom. Besides, I’m paying it forward. Now McMorbid owes me one.”

“Yeah,” I hoisted my bag over my shoulder, “I’m rubbing off on you alright,” and then I helped Liara up while thinking that she was a good person deep down regardless of the elven blood flowing in her veins. 

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Our march deeper into the second floor resumed soon afterward. However, other than our encounter with the sluagh, there wasn’t much resistance on our way to the cavern-like hall that led down to the dungeon’s next area.

The third floor was a labyrinth of interlocking crypts with walls covered in row upon row of old human skulls. The miasma hovering over the ground was thicker here too, and it worked to impede our sight while also making it hard to breathe.

“Raise those sage lamps high, apprentices!” Mistress Lorelai ordered. “We don’t want to get caught with our breeches down this time.”

Even with the help of our sage lamps, navigating the third floor’s passages remained a challenging endeavor. A foreboding atmosphere clung to our raid group, sending chills up and down our collective backs. Not me though. After that initial shock of my first dungeon battle, my senses had gotten used to a dungeon’s atmosphere so that I barely flinched at the first signs of monstrous shadows appearing just within the encroaching miasma’s folds.

“Time to go to work, novices!” Mistress Lorelai brandished her spear forward. “Run these shy bastards through!”

No, we didn’t charge in recklessly like you might have thought. Our raid group fought in the same cautious fashion as with our fight against the sluagh. We used sage lamps to clear out the miasma and then lobbed salt grenades at whatever monster was revealed by the light. Only after these two steps were accomplished did we charge at our enemies with weapons unsheathed.

“Keep up the pressure!” Zen, who was a leader of one of the journeyman teams, ordered. “Push them back, men!”

“And women!” one of his female teammates replied. “We’re doing twice as much work as you men, FYI!”

“Ye-yes...” I could almost see Zen’s cheeks flush crimson, but there was just too much hair covering his face for me to be sure. “And women... of course!”

The members in our frontlines were mostly comprised of the journeyman class’s warriors, so they made short work of our random encounters. Meanwhile, I spent much of this march in the rearguard protecting our supply cart and feeling bored out of my mind.

“We’ll get our shot eventually,” Dess promised. “They’re bound to mess up like before and we’ll be up to our necks in monsters once again.”

Yes, Dess seemed just as bored as I was. Why else would she hope for such a crazy scenario like a breaking of our frontlines to occur? It didn’t happen though, which sucked for us.  

Instead, Dess and I found ourselves cheering along with our fellow rearguard as a journeyman warrior cleaved a spiny ghoul in two, or gasped out loud after our fellow apprentice hunter’s arrows passed harmlessly through a barrow wight’s ghostly form.

“Use cold iron arrows, Elias Driftwood, you satyr fool!” Mistress Lorelai snapped. “What kind of idiot wastes good steel on an incorporeal being?”

Our support team only broke ranks when an injured adventurer called for medical aid. Even then, I was just a bodyguard for Scaredy Cat when we waded into combat range so he could provide some healing to whoever needed it. Luckily for me, one of the red cloaks messed up at just this moment and allowed a barrow wight to fly through his body—freezing him up instantly. This same barrow wight noticed the healing energy emanating from Scaredy Cat’s spell and zipped straight for him with kamikaze fury.

I jumped in front of Scaredy Cat and then raised my glaive forward rifle-style with the blue stone pommel aimed at the incoming ghostly figure.

“I call on thee, oh might spirits of fire,” I chanted quickly. “Come forth and breathe life into my desire—”

The barrow wright was so damn fast it was almost close enough to lash out at me with ghostly fingers.

“Burn into a single, sharp—vargr!” I cursed. “Firebolt!”

I had to cut my chant short because long, emaciated fingers were now mere inches from my face. My half-plea for the spirits to empower my magic would have to be enough though—and it was.

Magic vibrated along the handle of my blade to explode outward from its jeweled pommel into a roaring golden blaze reminiscent of a freaking flame thrower.

Yes, I did notice that this haphazard flame wasn’t the more refined laser beam I’d used to cut Doomsday’s cheek, but I knew how to work with what I got—especially since Flame Heart had given the spell a boost in firepower. A blast of magical flames aimed at its face burned through the barrow wight’s incorporeal form, forcing a scream out of it that reverberated around the hall we were in.

The barrow wight didn’t die from just that though. It flailed around in the air in a vain attempt to put out the fire that clung to its raggy clothes.

“On, no, you don’t!” I jumped forward while twirling my glaive around so that its blade was facing forward now. “You’re mine!”

With a swing fueled by excitement, I cut the barrow wight in half. And, while I sheathed my glaive, the last vestiges of the barrow wight’s otherworldly light sputtered out, earning me my first kill since the little monsters of the second floor ambushed us.

“Huh, why was Will left in the rear all this time?” Zen asked incredulously.

“Because I don’t know Mr. Wisdom well enough to trust him at the front,” Mistress Lorelai answered. “Take Mr. Rosé back to the rear, Mr. Wisdom.”

As I passed her by, Mistress Lorelai offered me an affirmative nod which I assumed was her version of a thumbs up.

Well, I’ll be showing off some more until you finally accept me, ma’am…

We made steady progress along the third floor and even went on to challenge the newly spawned monster guarding the passage to the room where our LEPRCON guide claimed our quest’s target would be found. It was an ogre. And not just any ogre either, but a cigar-smoking twelve-foot horned giant with body hair covering it from head to toe and deep-set emerald eyes full of murderous intent flashing underneath a green bowler hat that sat upon the monster’s brow like a crown—a symbolic feature of an Irish ogre.

“Watch out for its area-of-effect ability!” Mistress Lorelai warned. “Tanks upfront!”

During this battle, even I had my hands full providing potions and first-aid for burn wounds.

“I need more bandages!” I yelled to the rear.

“Wisdom!” Liara called. “Duck!”

I was treating a burn victim with some spider silk gauze and heavy-duty burn ointment when a cloud of billowing ash and fiery sparks descended on me and my charge.

“Frigid Hel,” I cursed.

Almost out of reflex, I sent my mana into my foot and then stomped hard at the ground. An explosion of volcanic ash and lava erupted from underneath me and rose to counteract the powerful ash cloud that the Irish ogre had blown into being from the thick cigar in his mouth.

“Yeah, that’s right. My fire’s bigger than yours, you veslingr dragon wannabee!” I taunted.

Couldn’t help myself. Sue me.

“Why didn’t you tell me you could wield magic like that?” Mistress Lorelai asked as she arrived at my side with her spear glowing with fierce golden light. “Could you do it again?”

“Um,” I didn’t want to tip my hand before we got to the main event, but how could I say no to that glare, “I can do it twice more without resting.”

“Wait for that monstrosity to blow from its cigar again, and then cast your flashy fire magic to cancel out its wide-area attack and stomp on its bloody pride,” she instructed before turning her gaze on the warriors, mages, and rogues gathered around her. “Well, are you idiots going to let this apprentice who hasn’t been in the Academy a full week show you up?”

An outcry of curses aimed at me rang out, forcing me to sigh out loud and goad them all back in return. “If you guys were better at ducking out of its way, my fellow support team members wouldn’t be running out of supplies at this juncture of the raid. You wouldn’t need me helping you kill it either.”

This earned me more insults. Although Mistress Lorelai laughed out loud enough to silence them all.

“You’re just like her, your arrogant master.” The dökkálfar instructor grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and drew me closer to within inches of her face. “Alright, brat… I’ll give you free rein. Show me what you’ve got and go wild.”

It was just what I wanted, although the honor of killing the Irish ogre wouldn’t be mine. Liara’s hand would deal the final blow.

See, I took Mistress Lorelai’s plan a little too literally. While Helm and Koby Grimm stole back the Irish ogre’s aggro—all that flyting made the brothers excellent at taunting—I snuck alongside the ogre, waited for its telegraphed actions of blowing on its cigar, and then targeted the ground between the monster’s legs so I could literally stomp on its pride. Then, as my Volcanic Step burned the ogre’s crown jewels, Liara jumped over my flames and sliced the monster’s neck from ear to ear with her spell-saber.

As for her killing move, I guessed that she’d cast a variant of ‘Elemental Weapon’ on her sword because its blade had been glowing like a lightsaber when she sliced the ogre’s neck.   

Moreover, Liara wasn’t the only one to take advantage of my awesome distraction. Several thick red-feathered bolts were embedded on the ogre’s chest that I belatedly noticed—after I glanced over my shoulder—had come from the redheaded dwarf from my apprentice class. I think her name was Delphine. 

I watched the dwarf lovingly pat the heavy-looking crossbow in her hands like it was a favorite pet and wondered where I could get my hands on a custom-made ranged weapon with a sniper scope like hers had.

“Victory!” Someone yelled, to which many others replied, “Victory! Victory! Victory~~y”

After that mini-boss fell, Mistress Lorelai ordered everyone to check their gear and prepare for the next fight. And, once our preparations were completed, she led the way into the passage the ogre had been guarding and into the room beyond it.

“Stay frosty,” Liara whispered into my ear as she passed me by, to which I replied, “Kill stealing’s illegal, you know!”

“Not when it’s a team effort,” she called back.

A quick inspection of the wide space revealed that we’d stumbled into an indoor garden, which according to our LEPRCON guide, was exactly the kind of environment the monsters responsible for Aine’s suffering preferred.

“These wee bastards are somewhere in here. I’m sure of it,” Lieutenant Doyle declared.

We were in a wide, circular chamber lit by torch sconces hanging at intervals around moss-covered walls. The ground was overgrown with grass. Grape vines hung down from a ceiling so high its rafters were lost in the gloom. The space was glaringly empty of monsters though. You couldn’t even sense their presence nearby.

“Smells like home,” Zen joked.

I thought he was right, though. The garden did smell simultaneously of alcohol and barf, which was how the tower’s hearth smelled after one of our nightly revelries.

Another one of my master’s notes on dungeon exploration surfaced in my mind; Never judge things at face value. Trust your nose. Evil things can look fair but will always smell foul.

Mistress Lorelai ordered everyone to spread out into the garden and begin setting up traps while she walked cautiously toward its center. Once there, her hand reached into the grass. When it came up, she was holding onto a short staff wrapped in vines with a pine cone shoved up its tip.  

I should have stayed back with the other mages who were planting the lures that would bring trouble our way, but I couldn’t help walking to Mistress Lorelai’s side after I recognized the item in her hand.

“That’s a thyrsus, isn’t it, ma’am?” I confirmed.

“Yes...” Mistress Lorelai glanced upward. “We’re in the right place, Mr. Wisdom.”

“The targets aren’t here though...” I frowned at the thyrsus. There was something about it that didn’t sit well with me. “You think we scared them away?” 

“No.” Mistress Lorelai knew how to dole out goosebumps with just a single word. “Mr. Wisdom, get—”

A chorus of wild, high-pitched shrieks erupted from the shadows above, and then all Hel broke loose.