“Hey, how long is this going to take?” Abruptly, I opened my eyes and continued to massage my temples. “My wife is waiting for me at home.”
“Is she a dwarf? And most importantly, does she have a beard?” I asked and looked down upon the nearly finished magical circle. The block of mithril had turned into a completely circular disk with a few centimetres height. On the surface, this disk looked completely flat, but upon closer inspection one would be able to pick out thin, carefully placed lines. Even I wasn’t able to read what I wrote there as only the uppermost layer made somewhat sense if one knew the language of the gods in the first place. Sadly, the dwarf didn’t have this knowledge and was rather keen on heading home apparently.
“Never seen a female dwarf or what? Are we some kind of animals you put in your garden to enjoy?” That would be quite hilarious. Having my own dwarf was always a dream of mine … to bad I didn’t know much about the species-appropriate keeping.
“I believe the right word for that would be a zoo … or a freak show. But no, I see every race as equal. Do you have a mana stone by any chance?” I asked and looked around. Sadly, this smithy was tidied up and not much was flying around.
“Not for free.” Pursing my lips, I shortly considered doing the rest at a later date, but then chose against it.
“Oh gosh, why are you so stingy? I´m not going to steal it and you can recharge it later anyway. But okay, you can have the rest of the mithril.” I said and pointed over my shoulder towards the nearly empty bucket. Not too shortly afterwards, he handed me a medium sized mana stone, roughly the size or my index finger. Very carefully, I stepped onto the thin mithril plate and placed the stone in the middle of it. Nearly instantly, the previously glowing stone turned dark as the mana flowed into the circle and powered it up for a second or so. I could also confirm that everything worked correctly as the magic tried to latch onto my soul which I vehemently refused. But other than that …
“The mana consumption is horrible.” As if I didn’t know that my beloved dwarf. It worked, but it probably leaked an horrendous amount of mana into the surroundings. I couldn’t confirm it, but the energy efficiency was probably around F going by the EPREL norm.
“Well then …” I picked up the mana stone once more and handed it over to him. “someone will come and get this tomorrow morning. His name is probably Bob … or something else, I don’t know. But see that this is getting handed over please.” I said, stepped out of the circle and was already on my way to the door as the dwarf stopped me vehemently.
“You promised to reveal how S tier magical weapons are crafted.” There was something like that, but even then, I wasn’t too keen on revealing it.
“Oh … did I? I did! Well then …” I turned around on my heels, strolled towards his hammer and picked it up without any trouble. “Well then. The secret lies within your magic. Humanoids are capable of magic because their soul provides the necessary amount of mana just by existing. It is like a well of a nearly endless mana supply and storage” The ground beneath my feet turned darker and darker and seemed to liquify a little bit. “… just that you cannot draw out too much at the same time. What you call MP stat is basically a measurement of how much you can use of that mana slumbering in your soul since your very birth which is also constantly refilling. Nothing else is capable of such a feat.” And there was it, a blue orb floating out of the black patch to my feet, heading right towards the tip of the hammer. Telling a soul where to head was the second magic I ever learned and was thus quite the easy feat if I didn’t overdo it. I didn’t even need to chant for this anymore as getting a single soul out of purgatory came like speaking the godly language to me. “And so, if you put a part of your own soul into a weapon, said weapon is able to give out a constant stream of mana. And here you have it, your own magical hammer.” I said and threw the hammer over towards him. Thankfully it wasn´t the largest hammer, and so he didn’t think much of my sudden strength.
“Your own soul?” He asked and caught the hammer out of the air, albeit just barely. “Does that mean …” I obviously uttered a lot of crap right there, but he didn’t have any way of confirming it. The only thing he noticed was the tiny bit of mana flowing out of the hammer, creating a completely new magical signature never seen before. Or rather, never felt before as the soul simply didn’t give out any signature if it was bound to anything organic.
“You are holding a piece of me in your hands … and I want that piece back.” I said exactly as the ground beneath the hammer turned pitch black, tendrils shot out of it and grabbed the soul out of the hammer. Getting a lost soul where it belonged was even easier than getting it out of purgatory, so chartless was also possible there. “And that’s it. I don’t understand completely how our predecessors did confine souls within weapons, but that is the explanation. You may clap now.”
“That is ground-breaking!” The dwarf exclaimed loudly. What may have been even more shocking for him was that this knowledge already existed as an idea two hundred years ago. It was just that the professor who was smart enough to figure it out, didn’t survive the explosion we prepared for him. And since then, nobody seemed to have a similar idea, or rather, it was too absurd to claim something along these lines.
“Yeah, and you will be labelled as crazy if you ever tell anyone else.” With no way to prove it, others would simply laugh at him, including me but mostly because I liked to ridicule others. “Try to stay out of the psychiatry, will you?” I laughed loudly and strolled past him to head towards the door. Right in front of it, I paused and took a deep breath though. “Does your wife have a beard though?”
“No …” He muttered, clearly thinking about the next steps he would take. Sadly, I could claim with confidence that these steps would lead nowhere and was thus more surprised about his beardless wife than anything else. I always assumed all dwarfs had beards, but living in human society must have pressured her at least a little bit to get rid of it.
“See ya!” I said and opened the door, only to be greeted by a cold breeze and the calm night sky. And Hannah, of course. Hannah, who sipped on a drink which clearly didn’t do her much good. I always assumed I was the worst drinker of all, but she was certainly worse. Before I could even approach, she waved towards me, pressed the mug into the hands of a confused bystander and staggered onwards.
“Luschy, whatscha doing?” With great interest, I tilted my head out of habit and eyed her closely. After several seconds of just watching, I was exactly where I was as I stepped out of the smithy: She was drunk.
“You are aware I don’t know the way back?” I asked while chuckling quietly. This right there had the potential to be a very funny adventure.
“Just … j-“ She suddenly had a very bad hiccup and needed several seconds to steady herself once more. “just use your compass … follow y-your heart! Oh … my head.” Follow your heart was a rather interesting approach and honestly nearly as amusing as the hero winning because of some power of friendship. But no, I rather took the compass out of one of Hannah´s pockets and grabbed her hand.
“It´s west, right? And then north … I believe.” I mumbled and pulled Hannah behind me for several metres until she simply stopped, and then hugged me from behind just as I wanted to turn around.
“Don´t leave me … alone …” She mumbled with a sadness in her voice that hit even my heart. I was honestly quite confused by her sudden outburst of sadness and didn’t know what to do right away. Instead, I just stood there awkwardly and noticed how tears fell upon my shoulder. Sometimes I really had to wonder how old she really was … because she clearly showed quite the unusual behaviour for someone her age.
“Hannah … we already talked about that, didn’t we? Come on, let´s go. We still need to move out tonight.” So she was of the cuddle type alcoholic. Constantly being close to me was apparently her new wish which did complicate things a lot more. It took a long time for me wiggle out of her embrace and an even longer time to motivate her to keep going. While I focused on the compass from time to time and tried to sooth the overly drunk Hannah who could switch from being extremely happy to have me, to a weeping mess within seconds, I could confirm … that I didn’t remember any of the houses we passed since a little while.
“Excuse me, good sir, do you know where the Wandering Inn is?” I asked a random person in front of a nearby inn. He looked decent enough to not ridicule me, which was certainly better than the other costumers.
“Miss, this city has thousands of inns. I only know three.” He stated and took a sip out of his mug. It was a very fancy mug though … not that it mattered.
“And I presume mine isn´t among them?” I asked kindly once more. Maybe, just maybe he knew something if he thought a little bit harder. Just maybe.
“No.” He stated plainly without even bothering to think about it. Exhaling loudly, I nodded towards him and turned around with Hannah in tow. “I wish I could help you more, Miss Angel.”
“Angel?” I asked in confusion and turned my head in his direction once more.
“Your voice is … beautiful.” He stated calmly and looked down into his apparently empty mug.
“Ah … thanks.” I said and strolled away without caring about his reply in the slightest. I shouldn’t have waited in the first place. “Let’s get you home now, shall we?” And further and further north I went with a drunkard in tow. At least it was slightly interesting to see Hannah so attached to me … I really should get her to drink with me sometime.
“Hey, how long is this going to take?” Abruptly, I opened my eyes and continued to massage my temples. “My wife is waiting for me at home.”
“Is she a dwarf? And most importantly, does she have a beard?” I asked and looked down upon the nearly finished magical circle. The block of mithril had turned into a completely circular disk with a few centimetres height. On the surface, this disk looked completely flat, but upon closer inspection one would be able to pick out thin, carefully placed lines. Even I wasn’t able to read what I wrote there as only the uppermost layer made somewhat sense if one knew the language of the gods in the first place. Sadly, the dwarf didn’t have this knowledge and was rather keen on heading home apparently.
“Never seen a female dwarf or what? Are we some kind of animals you put in your garden to enjoy?” That would be quite hilarious. Having my own dwarf was always a dream of mine … to bad I didn’t know much about the species-appropriate keeping.
“I believe the right word for that would be a zoo … or a freak show. But no, I see every race as equal. Do you have a mana stone by any chance?” I asked and looked around. Sadly, this smithy was tidied up and not much was flying around.
“Not for free.” Pursing my lips, I shortly considered doing the rest at a later date, but then chose against it.
“Oh gosh, why are you so stingy? I´m not going to steal it and you can recharge it later anyway. But okay, you can have the rest of the mithril.” I said and pointed over my shoulder towards the nearly empty bucket. Not too shortly afterwards, he handed me a medium sized mana stone, roughly the size or my index finger. Very carefully, I stepped onto the thin mithril plate and placed the stone in the middle of it. Nearly instantly, the previously glowing stone turned dark as the mana flowed into the circle and powered it up for a second or so. I could also confirm that everything worked correctly as the magic tried to latch onto my soul which I vehemently refused. But other than that …
“The mana consumption is horrible.” As if I didn’t know that my beloved dwarf. It worked, but it probably leaked an horrendous amount of mana into the surroundings. I couldn’t confirm it, but the energy efficiency was probably around F going by the EPREL norm.
“Well then …” I picked up the mana stone once more and handed it over to him. “someone will come and get this tomorrow morning. His name is probably Bob … or something else, I don’t know. But see that this is getting handed over please.” I said, stepped out of the circle and was already on my way to the door as the dwarf stopped me vehemently.
“You promised to reveal how S tier magical weapons are crafted.” There was something like that, but even then, I wasn’t too keen on revealing it.
“Oh … did I? I did! Well then …” I turned around on my heels, strolled towards his hammer and picked it up without any trouble. “Well then. The secret lies within your magic. Humanoids are capable of magic because their soul provides the necessary amount of mana just by existing. It is like a well of a nearly endless mana supply and storage” The ground beneath my feet turned darker and darker and seemed to liquify a little bit. “… just that you cannot draw out too much at the same time. What you call MP stat is basically a measurement of how much you can use of that mana slumbering in your soul since your very birth which is also constantly refilling. Nothing else is capable of such a feat.” And there was it, a blue orb floating out of the black patch to my feet, heading right towards the tip of the hammer. Telling a soul where to head was the second magic I ever learned and was thus quite the easy feat if I didn’t overdo it. I didn’t even need to chant for this anymore as getting a single soul out of purgatory came like speaking the godly language to me. “And so, if you put a part of your own soul into a weapon, said weapon is able to give out a constant stream of mana. And here you have it, your own magical hammer.” I said and threw the hammer over towards him. Thankfully it wasn´t the largest hammer, and so he didn’t think much of my sudden strength.
“Your own soul?” He asked and caught the hammer out of the air, albeit just barely. “Does that mean …” I obviously uttered a lot of crap right there, but he didn’t have any way of confirming it. The only thing he noticed was the tiny bit of mana flowing out of the hammer, creating a completely new magical signature never seen before. Or rather, never felt before as the soul simply didn’t give out any signature if it was bound to anything organic.
“You are holding a piece of me in your hands … and I want that piece back.” I said exactly as the ground beneath the hammer turned pitch black, tendrils shot out of it and grabbed the soul out of the hammer. Getting a lost soul where it belonged was even easier than getting it out of purgatory, so chartless was also possible there. “And that’s it. I don’t understand completely how our predecessors did confine souls within weapons, but that is the explanation. You may clap now.”
“That is ground-breaking!” The dwarf exclaimed loudly. What may have been even more shocking for him was that this knowledge already existed as an idea two hundred years ago. It was just that the professor who was smart enough to figure it out, didn’t survive the explosion we prepared for him. And since then, nobody seemed to have a similar idea, or rather, it was too absurd to claim something along these lines.
“Yeah, and you will be labelled as crazy if you ever tell anyone else.” With no way to prove it, others would simply laugh at him, including me but mostly because I liked to ridicule others. “Try to stay out of the psychiatry, will you?” I laughed loudly and strolled past him to head towards the door. Right in front of it, I paused and took a deep breath though. “Does your wife have a beard though?”
“No …” He muttered, clearly thinking about the next steps he would take. Sadly, I could claim with confidence that these steps would lead nowhere and was thus more surprised about his beardless wife than anything else. I always assumed all dwarfs had beards, but living in human society must have pressured her at least a little bit to get rid of it.
“See ya!” I said and opened the door, only to be greeted by a cold breeze and the calm night sky. And Hannah, of course. Hannah, who sipped on a drink which clearly didn’t do her much good. I always assumed I was the worst drinker of all, but she was certainly worse. Before I could even approach, she waved towards me, pressed the mug into the hands of a confused bystander and staggered onwards.
“Luschy, whatscha doing?” With great interest, I tilted my head out of habit and eyed her closely. After several seconds of just watching, I was exactly where I was as I stepped out of the smithy: She was drunk.
“You are aware I don’t know the way back?” I asked while chuckling quietly. This right there had the potential to be a very funny adventure.
“Just … j-“ She suddenly had a very bad hiccup and needed several seconds to steady herself once more. “just use your compass … follow y-your heart! Oh … my head.” Follow your heart was a rather interesting approach and honestly nearly as amusing as the hero winning because of some power of friendship. But no, I rather took the compass out of one of Hannah´s pockets and grabbed her hand.
“It´s west, right? And then north … I believe.” I mumbled and pulled Hannah behind me for several metres until she simply stopped, and then hugged me from behind just as I wanted to turn around.
“Don´t leave me … alone …” She mumbled with a sadness in her voice that hit even my heart. I was honestly quite confused by her sudden outburst of sadness and didn’t know what to do right away. Instead, I just stood there awkwardly and noticed how tears fell upon my shoulder. Sometimes I really had to wonder how old she really was … because she clearly showed quite the unusual behaviour for someone her age.
“Hannah … we already talked about that, didn’t we? Come on, let´s go. We still need to move out tonight.” So she was of the cuddle type alcoholic. Constantly being close to me was apparently her new wish which did complicate things a lot more. It took a long time for me wiggle out of her embrace and an even longer time to motivate her to keep going. While I focused on the compass from time to time and tried to sooth the overly drunk Hannah who could switch from being extremely happy to have me, to a weeping mess within seconds, I could confirm … that I didn’t remember any of the houses we passed since a little while.
“Excuse me, good sir, do you know where the Wandering Inn is?” I asked a random person in front of a nearby inn. He looked decent enough to not ridicule me, which was certainly better than the other costumers.
“Miss, this city has thousands of inns. I only know three.” He stated and took a sip out of his mug. It was a very fancy mug though … not that it mattered.
“And I presume mine isn´t among them?” I asked kindly once more. Maybe, just maybe he knew something if he thought a little bit harder. Just maybe.
“No.” He stated plainly without even bothering to think about it. Exhaling loudly, I nodded towards him and turned around with Hannah in tow. “I wish I could help you more, Miss Angel.”
“Angel?” I asked in confusion and turned my head in his direction once more.
“Your voice is … beautiful.” He stated calmly and looked down into his apparently empty mug.
“Ah … thanks.” I said and strolled away without caring about his reply in the slightest. I shouldn’t have waited in the first place. “Let’s get you home now, shall we?” And further and further north I went with a drunkard in tow. At least it was slightly interesting to see Hannah so attached to me … I really should get her to drink with me sometime.
