Color Attribute Self World World-to-Self Self-to-World Red Strength Blocking Striking Enhanced Muscles Thaumaturgy Orange Dexterity Crafting Mechanics Enhanced Hands Invocation Yellow Perception Subterfuge Search Enhanced Senses Iconography Green Endurance Athletics Survival Enhanced Feet Hermetics Azure Intelligence Knowledge Language Enhanced Mind Wizardry Indigo Willpower Discipline Maintenance Enhanced Heart Sorcery Violet Charisma Persuasion Tending Enhanced Breath Incantation Dark Soul Recollection Clairvoyance Enhanced Soul Necromancy

"That is entirely too many kinds of magic," Basalt says, leaning over to look at the page. "And what does Hermetics have to do with feet, anyway?"

"Winged sandals of Hermes?" I say with a shrug. "That's all I can think of. I guess the names probably make more sense in Common. There's only so many words in English related to magic and the system translator has to call it something."

"I would have been fine with Foot Magic," Basalt says. "Enhanced Feet isn't exactly an obscure name, either. And I can't see myself doing ritual dances and hand gestures to do magic. I'll learn Wizardry at least, for sure. That's too useful for magitech items and I want Corwen's fancy magic tea kettles in Hebron. Discovering coffee might be nice, too."

"I need to figure out what sort of Sorcery skills I'd be capable of doing," I say. "My Discipline is high enough that I was offered a class for it, but I didn't pick it."

Basalt taps the page. "What's Invocation, exactly?"

"You use a focus item to do magic," Anise says.

"Like, a specific type of item?" Basalt asks. "Like a holy symbol or something?"

"Any item, I suppose," Anise says. "Griza's got her mushroom staff. Drake keeps trying to carve snake staves to heal people with. At least, he says they're supposed to be snakes."

"Hey, my [Woodworking] is up to 11 now," I say. "And I just picked a Crafting-based class, so I will definitely be making more snake staves. I can probably imprint the concept of healing on them in the process, too. [Resonant Child] wants me to be 'in tune' with that."

"You know, if people see you holding a healer's staff, they'll probably know to kill you first," Basalt points out.

"They'll have to get through me first," Rowan says. His teenage voice cracks, ruining the declaration a little.

"Could the focus item be a tool or weapon?" Basalt asks. "Like a hammer or axe?"

"Yeah," Anise says. "Lots of Warrior and Rogue adventurers have Invocation skills that use their weapon or shield for something."

"Cool, I'll have to try and pick up a couple of those," Basalt says. "Incantation is voice-based, I assume? What's Iconography?"

"Pictures," Anise says. "Meadow does paintings and sketches."

Basalt nods thoughtfully, rubbing his beard. "Man, I already had a lot of choices before I turned Elite just with general skills and enhancements. And we can't neglect those either because our skill caps just got doubled. We need to find our ways to work with our new classes, too."

"A class is a promise, I guess," Anise says. "Me picking [Pyromaniac Sorcerer] was a promise to set things on fire. And now I've promised to use Sorcery more broadly and to fly a lot. Now that I'm Heroic and with a broader class, I want to try and pick up a few new skills, too. Personally, I'd recommend everyone learn at least a little Sorcery. Sigils and toys are fun but when it comes down to the wire, you only have yourself and your own will."

"I already unlocked Sorcery (Protection)," Rowan says.

"Thank you for not letting them kill me, by the way," I say.

"You get into fun things and give lots of experience," Rowan points out.

I bring out my latest notebook. I haven't raised my [Long-Term Planning] skill as much as Aunt Rosemary might have hoped for, but I was perfectly willing to spend excessive amounts of paper and ink gushing about all the cool things I wanted to try. It's about time to organize my notes.

To Do List:

Build a skyship.

Build a bridge in Grubwick.

Build forges in Hebron and Grubwick.

Magic is based on concepts, and with Clairvoyance, I can literally see concepts. It's still my highest skill and I'm absolutely going to use it to my advantage in learning to do more cool things than just see magic. Don't get me wrong, being able to see magic is really cool, but it's not so cool to be able to see magic but never touch it.

Corwen's skill encyclopedias automagically get updated with the skills of members of the Hearth when they die. I haven't had a chance to look at anyone else's skill books yet, so I don't know how common it is to respect the privacy of living members to keep their skills secret until they die. This does, however, mean that a great many of the skills I've unlocked are not listed in the encyclopedia.

I add to my to do list:

Write notes on Soul skills.

See if Hebrons can learn any of them easily.

The skill book does mention several skills that I really want, as well as gives me ideas for variations to try. Although I already have Wizardry (Vehicle Control), there are many well-known skills to work with skyships. We have had a fair number of aethernauts in the past 700 years. I share my findings with my party.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Incantation (Sky Shanty) probably isn't necessary as I use telepathy and none of us has bardic aspirations. I'm just glad Uncle Falcon didn't break it out on the Celestial Duck.

Invocation (Rope Trick) is noted as being especially useful for flying a skyship. The skill allows manipulating existing ropes to make them lengthen, shorten, tighten, loosen, even levitate to wrap around enemies in combat.

Conjuring a rope out of thin air, on the other hand, would require a skill like Iconography (Simulacrum). The object produced is temporary and it slowly melts into paint and then vanishes. Useful if, say, you only need the ropes to exist long enough to temporarily disable an enemy. Less useful if you need to keep vital bits of your ship existing for a long period of time.

Hermetics, strangely enough, might just be something worth looking into, but I have very little information about it here. Just the names of some skills and descriptions. As the "green" magic type, it symbolizes the world, travel, and exploration. It's associated with the feet as Thaumaturgy is to hand gestures. It's ritual dances, stances and footwork. I suppose Hermes isn't the worst to follow in the footsteps of. In any case, Hermetics is pushing your intent into the world through your feet.

Essentially, the enhancement skills are classified as world-to-self, and they entail pulling concepts from the world into yourself in one of your eight attributes. The magic skills are their counterparts as self-to-world, and they correspond to pushing concepts into the world from yourself via one of those eight paths.

With Enhanced Feet (Soft Landing), you're not actually affecting the ground, only reducing its effect upon your feet. With [Mapping Step], you're just using the ground to gather information, not changing anything.

There's a skill named Hermetics (Sky Surfing), and one of my ancestors notes that you have to get the skill quite high to really be able to control anything the size of a skyship without the help of sigils. They recommend sticking to flying around standing on a sword, since they're both light and sufficiently rigid. This sounds amazingly fun and there's absolutely no instructions on how to do it.

I scribble down:

Find someone who knows Hermetics.

Maybe I just need winged sandals? I could totally make winged sandals. I might even be able to make them work, too.

Make winged sandals. Try duck feathers.

I was given the name of a duck, so I will hopefully have a greater conceptual resonance with materials associated with ducks. It's worth testing, at any rate.

Make healing staff and learn to use it.

I draw an arrow from that line to before the one involving learning to fly and potentially injuring myself.

Now, for the sandals themselves...

Learn how to make sandals.

Rolling my eyes at myself, I draw an arrow from there to before making winged sandals with duck feathers.

Skills increased: Discipline (Long-Term Planning)

I had better be leveling up [Long-Term Planning] here. If the system is going to give me kudos for writing down things I intend to do, I won't complain.

I carve a staff with a snake wrapped around it, but the stick I chose has a knobby fork on the top. Inspired, I carve it into something vaguely resembling a duck carrying a snake, but it doesn't really wind up looking like anything. I find another stick that looks more like the right shape and carve a proper healing snake staff of that guy whose name starts with A that I could never spell even if any encyclopedias around here mentioned him. Was he the one with just the snake? Or two snakes, with or without wings?

I use a bit of Klog's special goblin glue to attach some duck feathers I find in storage to the top of my poorly carved ashwood snake staff. I bring out the calligraphy pen and sigil ink and draw the sigil of life on it. The beginner Wizardry books in Corwen's school library recommend starting with a single sigil and working your way up to more complex patterns.

Skills increased: Crafting (Woodworking, Calligraphy), Language (Mystic Sigils), Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis, Psychometry)

[Resonant Child] or otherwise, it doesn't look like that was enough yet to resonate with any new skills. I didn't really expect it to, though. It's enough for now. I will need to put the staff to use.

I climb to the top of Corwen Hearth's central tower and lay out my ritual implements: my new staff and as many pillows and blankets as I could get away with. I lay down and make myself comfortable, and gaze upon all the beautiful motes of light in the sky. And the one so big they call it the Great Orb. I breathe slowly and center myself within the Crystalline Heavens.

I am Drake Corwen.

I am Drake Corwen.

Skills increased: Enhanced Soul (Identity, Fractal Consciousness)

Drake Corwen opens his eyes as himself for the first time.

Oh.

I am not Drake Corwen.

I suppose it makes sense. If one were to try to be two, that would mean that one of them is going to be the other. We are distinct beings, though. I can clearly see it on the astral plane. Our spiritual trees are tightly entwined with one another, like a grafted apple tree. My astral tree is much larger than the seedling Drake, with many other such grafts. I am strangely and suddenly aware of all of them as I had not been able to see while I was being Drake.

Okay, it is just weird not hearing your constant babbling in my head.

Our spirit trees have shifted, allowing communication with some separation. [This feels weird.]

No kidding, Drake thinks. I don't know if I want to stay in this state too much of the time, but it will probably help for what we're trying to do here.

[It's easier to see things objectively without the limitations of the meat-body,] I tell him. [I have much better astral vision, for one thing. It's like before, we were only seeing the ocean from the surface. Murky, rippling, distorted. Now it's clear and bright.]

You probably have better access to the other souls, too.

I don't tell him that I also have access to those memories I did not feel the need to share with him, and why. I didn't see the need to traumatize a baby with bad memories, so I only gave him access to the good and neutral ones. He didn't need to spend his years growing up agonizing about how my home was destroyed in a wildfire and my mother died in a pandemic. None of it matters anymore. After a point, I mainly only let him have memories of watching movies, playing games, and reading books. Up until I no longer had time for fun. No one was making movies anymore once the zombies took over.

I didn't lock them away. They're basically just sitting in a cabinet, waiting for him to decide when or if he wants to see them. He has not chosen to do so.

Suddenly I am Drake Corwen again.

That was definitely weird. I take a few minutes to reorient myself and replenish my Inspiration meter.

Skills increased: Enhanced Soul (Gentle Soul, Salubrity, Mystic Inspiration)

Yes, yes. Ding, ding. Numbers going up. It is probably not important to be staring at them constantly. And that wasn't even a new skill, just increasing skills I already had. Still, I feel like I'm getting somewhere, and this is a necessary step if I'm ever going to do anything with all the ghosts clinging to my astral tree.

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