《Runes like Veins - HIATUS》 Chapter 1 - Loss Anael crept slowly through the underbrush, making her way toward the stag in front of her. She was only about thirty handspans away at this point, and well within bow range. For better or worse, though, Anael was far better at moving nearly silently that she was with her bow. There was also, of course, the ever present issue of strength. Anael was reasonably tall, and certainly stronger than the women in town who sewed all day, but she had never quite managed to match up to her brothers in terms of strength. She couldn¡¯t even blame it on her gender or her parents, since her father was a blacksmith and was, as he liked to say, ¡°stronger than an ox, but not as strong as me wife¡±. Meanwhile Anael¡¯s mother, Relina, had been a soldier in her youth and, before she died two winters previously, had been strong enough to lift her husband over her shoulder like a sack of flour. Anael wasn¡¯t entirely sure if her mother was in fact stronger than her father, but she was certainly more than strong enough to work long hours in the smithy, and could fire a longbow from a large enough distance that she didn¡¯t need to get anywhere near 30 handspans from her target. Anael, on the other hand, couldn¡¯t even string the longbow that her older brother used to hunt with, and had been forced to use a smaller recurve bow while he had taught her to hunt. The bright side of this deficiency was that Anael could sneak much closer to her prey than anyone else in town, which was how she was now nearly twenty handspans from the stag, with an arrow pulled back on the string of her bow. Anael slowly exhaled and paused for a moment, aligning her arrow for what she hoped would be a perfect shot to the heart, before releasing the string. The slight sound that was made caused the stag to notice, but before it could fully turn its head to look the arrow entered its chest. The stag took two steps as if to bolt, before collapsing. ¡°That was a perfect shot, or mealwort cures the shivers¡± Anael muttered under her breath with a slight grin as she walked towards the now dead animal. Mealwort, of course, is used to bring down fevers and will in fact, if overused, cause shivers. Likewise, Anael¡¯s shot was, as near as she could tell, perfect. ¡°Let¡¯s get you dressed and back home.¡± Anael had always had a habit of talking to her kills. She wasn¡¯t sure why, but perhaps it was that the fact that the animal was dead didn¡¯t quite set in immediately. As she dressed the stag, Anael removed its teeth and stored the liver in a prepared sack, since both could be used in certain potions and salves. The teeth, when ground to a powder, were useful as a binding agent and to thicken certain potions where other ingredients like flour would clump or even react and ruin the product. The liver, on the other hand, was useful for a burn salve that she had just started learning to make. She made sure to keep the hide intact and unblemished as much as possible so it would sell for more to the local tanner. Once she was done, Anael wrapped the carcass in a piece of cloth and slung it over her shoulders to carry it all the way home. Even after dressing it, the carcass was still heavy enough that she had to stop a few times on the way home, each time dreaming about the possibility of using magic to strengthen her body, or even to float her burden through the air behind her. Sadly the only sigils Anal had learned so far were ones using basic runes. She knew how to use the elemental rune for fire to light a campfire or, given a magic crystal to power it, cook food. She could fill up a waterskin with a sigil that combined a water rune with a decomposition and materialization array to convert raw water mana to water essence and then into actual water. The last, and most complex, sigil she had learned was a basic healing sigil. It was vastly more intricate than the other two, involving the composition of several smaller component sigils and the runes for light, dark, fire, water, earth, air, life, soul, and time. That was all six of the primary elements, one secondary, and two tertiary runes. Nonetheless, Anael had studied the sigil, as well as the required runes and component sigils, for hours until she could draw it with either hand entirely from memory (Anael liked being prepared, and if one hand was injured, she wanted to be able to heal it by drawing out the sigil with the other).The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. When Anael was taught these sigils by the traveling mage who sometimes visited the town, she had become very excited when told that a sigil to make an object levitate was actually simpler than the healing sigil she had learned. The reason she couldn¡¯t use it to transport her prey was twofold. Firstly, since she wasn¡¯t a mage and didn¡¯t have any significant mana of her own, making an object heavier than a feather levitate for more than an instant would require a very powerful (and very expensive) mana crystal, which Anael most certainly did not have (and could not afford). Secondly, that was only the sigil for levitation. Yes, it would make whatever she wanted hover at whatever height above the ground she wished, but it would also make it completely immobile and unable to be transported. The sigil to make a levitating object respond to outside forces but not gravity (i.e. float but be draggable), was far more complex than the basic healing sigil she had spent so many hours memorizing and practicing drawing. The sigil to make the floating object actually follow her on it¡¯s own was even worse, a true monster of runes and smaller sigils so large that even in the miniscule print that was used, the component sigils alone took up over a dozen pages in the book. And so, in between her daydreams of one day becoming a master sigiler, Anael made her way home. Or almost home. She had just reached the top of a hill from which she could normally see the tops of some of the taller buildings in town, their chimneys letting out streams of smoke from fireplaces and ovens, and a slightly larger stream of smoke from her father¡¯s forge as well as a few other buildings. Today, however, as she reached the top of the hill and looked up, there was far too much smoke. Anael blinked, rubbed her eyes, and stood there with her mouth open, processing what she was seeing. ¡°The town is on fire¡± she mumbled to herself. A moment passed before suddenly it hit her. ¡°HER BLOODY FUCKING TEARS, THE TOWN IS ON FIRE!¡± Anael cursed, and began running towards the town, the carcass on her shoulders and the sack of liver in her hand falling to the ground behind her. As Anael sprinted downhill toward her home, the first sounds she noticed were those of hooves on dirt and cobblestone, followed by the sounds of flames crackling, air rushing, and the sound of timbers breaking as buildings collapsed. It wasn¡¯t long before she stood in front of what remained of her home. The smithy was mostly intact, being open on two sides and made almost entirely of stone. The actual house, however, was a flaming pile of rubble sitting next to a single wall, barely holding itself upright, and likely to soon join its three brethren and the roof. The world seemed to grow silent and turn gray around her as she stared into the flames, seeing a charred and ash covered hand sticking out from under one of the smoldering beams. She was about to rush forward, disregarding the flames, to try and see if any of her family were alive, or at least recover her father¡¯s and brother¡¯s corpses if they were there, when sound returned to her as she heard a shout. ¡°Cap¡¯n said no survivors, we got to make an example o¡¯ this place. You run ¡®er through and I¡¯ll go report. I think that¡¯s the last of ¡®em over here, and I¡¯d like to get home afore sundown.¡± Anael turned to look for the source of the shout and saw two mounted soldiers, one in full chain armor riding toward the center of town, and the other in a mix of chain and banded leather riding straight at her. Under normal circumstances, she probably could have dodged the blow, but due to being somewhat in shock and not entirely cogent at the time, Anael just stared at the horse as it came closer and closer. Anael watched the sword, not entirely believing that its tip was sinking into her chest, just to the side of her heart. It didn¡¯t hurt, not really, and she couldn¡¯t even hear it make a sound. And then everything went black. Chapter 2 - A Promise Broken Anael awoke to a sharp pain in her chest and a general sense of soreness. She groggily opened her eyes and noticed that her shirt and vest seemed to be wet with something. That was odd because the rest of her was quite dry and when she moved her arm up to feel her shirt, it felt warm and sticky. She brought her hand closer to her face and saw that it was covered in red. That was when she screamed. To be fair calling it a scream was a bit of a stretch. It came out odd and stopped as quickly as it started. She remembered finding her home in flames and being stabbed, but how could she still be alive? Was she still alive? Was this the afterlife? Surely not¡­ She slowly struggled to sit up and barely managed it, almost immediately regretting the action. As she looked around it seemed that the soldier who stabbed her had already left. In fact, they must have all left, otherwise they would have heard her scream-moan-gurgle and come back to finish the job. In other¡­ good? ¡­ news, it seemed that the sword had hit the center of her chest at an angle. The good part was that it had missed her heart and the largest of her arteries and veins. The bad part was that there was still a good bit of blood seeping out of her, and there would probably be a lot more if her shirt and vest weren¡¯t there. Her clothes seemed to have slowed the bleeding a little bit, but it wasn¡¯t enough. In addition, the blade seemed to have punctured, or at least nicked, her right lung. It wasn¡¯t full of blood yet by any means, but there was definitely some in there, and between that and the blood loss, there was no way she had more than a few hours before she passed out again. Once that happened she¡¯d die soon after. Anael slowly reached for the bottle of healing salve she always carried and realized it had been shattered at some point, probably when she fell. Not one to be dissuaded by that, she grabbed what she could and tried to spread it on her wound. There¡¯s no way this will keep me alive, she thought. Even if it slows the bleeding enough, I¡¯ve already lost a good bit of blood and there¡¯s more flowing into my lung every minute. She could draw a healing sigil but her only magic crystal was almost empty. Besides, even when it¡¯s full it can only heal scrapes and minor cuts. It seemed she was going to die here. Not as if there¡¯s anything I can do¡­ Might as well try the sigil I suppose, maybe I¡¯ll last long enough for help to arrive¡­ Maybe someone has seen the smoke. Anael looked up at the sky, sighed, and then immediately wished she hadn¡¯t. That hurt quite a bit. I¡¯m being far too optimistic. There¡¯s no way anyone will get here in time to save me. The likelihood of a trained healer being close enough and not having been killed by those soldiers is so low, I¡¯d be better off praying to the aspects for a miracle. Nonetheless, Anael reached into her pocket for some paper to draw the sigil on. At least I can put my hard earned knowledge to use, even if it¡¯s for naught. She pulled the paper out and then realized that this wasn¡¯t going to work, after all. Oh wonderful, it¡¯s covered in blood. I can¡¯t even spend my last moments performing magic, instead I get to sit here coughing up blood and waiting to die. And that was what she did, at least for a few minutes. Anael thought back over her life, remembering her family and the various townspeople who had helped or befriended her throughout her 19 years of life. Mom, I¡¯ll be joining you soon, and Dad¡¯s probably already there with you. She had recognized the ring on the hand in the fire as belonging to her father, confirming that he was definitely dead. I hope Harvin and Mel are alright, but I suppose I¡¯ll find out soon enough. Same with Kelara, thank you for teaching me about alchemy and herbs, it was so much fun and it saved my ass so many times when I was out hunting. Harvin, thanks for teaching me to hunt by the way. Dad, thank¡¯s for your lessons in the forge, I never was able to keep up, but you always complimented the things I managed to make. Gilian, I know you always payed more than the hides I brought you were worth and if it wasn¡¯t for you I wouldn¡¯t have been able to buy that book of sigils. And Zilfa, you¡¯re probably alive and well since you won¡¯t be coming to town for another week. Well you wouldn¡¯t be, but I guess now you won¡¯t be coming here anymore, will you? Not much town left to come to. In any case, thank you for teaching me about magic. Most mages barely deign to speak to a non-mage like me, much less teach them. And yet you taught me simply in exchange for a few basic potions that you probably didn¡¯t even need. I¡¯ll always remember the day you taught me about the different types of energy and how¡­ - Anael paused in her thoughts - wait a second, that might work. Sorry Zilfa, I know I promised you I¡¯d never try to power a sigil with my own mana, much less my life energy, but that was because it would have killed me. Considering the fact that I¡¯m going to die soon regardless, I hope you¡¯ll forgive me. It¡¯s really the only thing that has any chance of working, and that¡¯s only because it¡¯s a healing sigil and trying to heal me should create a feedback loop which will force it to only consume excess and refill any essential mana that is taken, but that is only if the overall structure implies ¡­ - Anael¡¯s thought process trailed off as she considered the details and whether it had any chance of actually prolonging her life, or whether it would simply kill her faster. If she had the right materials, she would definitely try it anyway, but considering that she had no sigiler¡¯s paper that wasn¡¯t ruined, there was only one mana conductive medium available to her, and she wasn¡¯t certain if this small chance was worth the cost.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Anael pulled the knife she had received for her 19th birthday, only a week ago, out of its sheath at her waist, and placed its blade amongst a pile of nearby embers that seemed the hottest, since they were mostly enclosed by other pieces of still burning wood. No sense doing this if it¡¯ll make me lose any more blood, then it has no chance of working. Once the blade seemed hot enough, Anael grasped the handle and brought the knife over towards her wounded chest. With her other hand, she pulled out her meager mana crystal and placed it in her wound. I like to think I have a high tolerance for pain, but this might be pushing it a little. Maybe I should just give up. I mean it probably won¡¯t even work. Is this really worth it? Anael used her free hand to grab part of her leather vest and put it in her mouth, biting down. No, it¡¯s definitely worth it. If this gives me the slightest chance to live long enough to get revenge on the bastards that did this then it¡¯s worth it. I¡¯m gonna fucking rip those sons of whores limb from fucking limb, I¡¯m gonna fucking cut their fucking eyes out. I¡¯m - She took a breath through her nose - I¡¯m gonna stay calm and do this and then, If I¡¯m still alive tomorrow, THEN I¡¯m gonna get angry. Anael inhaled quickly, pressed the red hot knife to her wounded chest, and then, despite the blood in her lung, she let out what most definitely qualified as a scream. At least several minutes had passed, not including however much time went by when Anael passed out halfway through. It felt like days, or at least hours, but judging by the amount of blood in her lung, it couldn¡¯t have been more than half an hour or maybe forty minutes at the absolute most. There. That¡¯s it. Assuming I haven¡¯t made a mistake, that¡¯s a complete basic healing sigil. I even managed to get the collection array so that it can bring in ambient mana from the air, not that it will be enough to heal me all the way, but it might be enough extra to stop this thing from drinking my all my life force and mana. She paused, took as deep a breath as she could, coughed up some blood, took another breath (slightly less deep this time) and activated the sigil. Anael could feel her mana and her very life slowly draining into the mana crystal she¡¯d embedded in her chest, but she could also feel the wound scabbing over and closing ever so slowly. If it can just stop the bleeding in my lung without killing me, that might be enough. I guess I¡¯ll find out if I wake up after this. Anael let the pain and exhaustion finally sweep over her and everything once more faded to black. Chapter 3 - Little Flame For the second time in as many days, Anael awoke to pain in her chest. This time, however, she remembered exactly where she was and how she got to be laying half dead on the ground beside the ruined embers of her home. His fucking flames! That hurts almost as bad as I did before I passed out! Anael could feel a strange pulsing in her chest, which had initially felt like a hot brand beneath her skin (a feeling she was now much more intimately familiar with). Luckily, the pain was quickly fading to bearable levels and after nought but a few minutes it was little more than a mildly uncomfortable flowing tingle. Sitting up very slowly and not feeling any sudden pain, Anael carefully pulled the ripped and cut apart tatters of her shirt to the side and looked at the center of her chest. I¡¯m healed¡­ she realized that she couldn¡¯t feel any blood in her lungs and that it didn¡¯t hurt to breathe. Well, healed might be stretching it a bit. There was still a large scab over where she had been stabbed, and many of the places where the healing sigil was burned into her were surrounded by blisters. But I¡¯m alive, I didn¡¯t honestly expect that to work, certainly not this well. She stared at the mana crystal embedded in her chest and was about to stand up when she realized something. That tingling feeling I can feel moving under my skin¡­ The timing matches the slight pulses of light I can see in the crystal, I wonder if I can feel the sigil working. As she peered closer at the crystal, craning her neck uncomfortably, Anael realized that she could see tiny threads of different colors ebbing and flowing through it. The nearly transparent ones are probably mana, the slightly more opaque ones might be life, the violet ones should be soul energy and I can see the six primary elements as well. Anael recalled a rhyme that she had learned to remember them initially, although the colors were quite intuitive if she were honest. Darkness rich, as black as pitch. Earth below, brown like the vroh. Water dew, of deepest blue. Wind and air, both gray and fair. Fire burning, red and yearning. Lastly Light, of purest white. But what could the others possibly be? The collection array I used can¡¯t pull in mana of higher order elements, and I certainly don¡¯t have any of my own, all that leaves is any other energies present in my body. There¡¯s no way I have enough raw Will for it to be visible like this. There must be other sources of power that Zilfa never taught me about¡­ I wonder if I could learn to harness some of them, or if that would kill me just like using my life energy would¡­ Anael gasped, and then muttered a quick prayer. Thank the aspects I¡¯m alive, not that they had anything to do with, If my life energy is flowing into the sigil, then I¡¯m still here because¡­ - Her thoughts trailed off as she stared carefully at the thin, burned in lines marring her chest. Thank you again Zilfa, for making me learn how to insert a bypass into the storage component sigil. So it¡¯s siphoning my life energy, but since it¡¯s trying to heal me it immediately puts it back. And I haven¡¯t run out of mana and died from that because the bypass makes sure some mana is always cycling. It¡¯ll keep me at the bare minimum, but it will never take all of it. That probably applies to those other energies as well, and that explains the tingling - the entirety of my mana is constantly flowing from me, through the sigil, and back with any extra being used to heal. Oh! I bet that¡¯s how those magic blocking collars they use on rogue mages work. Just keep the mana cycling and either dump the extra, or use it to strengthen the collar itself. If only I could tell Zilfa about that, maybe I can find her once I get away from here, before that though I need to - Anael¡¯s thoughts darkened as she looked over at the ruins of her home. I need to bury my family. And I need to kill the bastards who did this. Anael was calmer now, compared to how she had been before. The anger was still there, but it felt colder now, deeper and more solid. She steeled her resolve. I have much to do, both here and wherever those soldiers came from, Zhelteron probably, judging by their accent, and before any of that I need to get some food in my stomach. Anael could feel her stomach complaining to her about how it had been empty for so long. How long has it been anyway, I was probably unconcious for an hour or less when I was stabbed, it was certainly the same day. Considering that it¡¯s not yet noon now, it must be the next day, meaning I spent all night and much of the morning healing. I suppose it¡¯s time to do what must be done. Anael slowly stood, wobbling a bit before shaking her head and taking a step forward, steeling her resolve for what was to come. But when she looked over the ruins of her home, and saw the charred hand with her father¡¯s ring on it, she simply stood with tears running down her face as the sun slowly worked it¡¯s way across the sky.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Nearly an hour later, her eyes now dry, Anael made her way behind the mostly intact forge to look for a shovel. Finding one, she began clear a way through the ashes and charred wood that used to be her home. Moving a scorched wooden beam aside as parts of it crumbled, she revealed the sight she had been dreading. Why? Why why why WHY WHY WHY WHY - She nearly fell over as a wave of nausea overcame her and she vomited. The taste of acid and bile filled her mouth as she attempted to calm her emotions. After getting control of her stomach, Anael wrapped her father¡¯s corpse in a more or less intact sheet of cloth she was able to recover and began to drag him toward a tree that stood behind the ruins of the house, far enough that it had not been damaged by the fire. It took several hours of digging, and Anael was now exhausted and ravenous, not to mention that her chest wound nearly reopened at several points, which was quite painful. The only thing holding me together is this sigil and force of will. I need to find some food after this and then rest. She just managed to drag the bundle containing what was left of her father into the hole and cover it over, before collapsing to her knees. ¡°Goodbye father, I miss you so much already¡± Tears flowed down her face once more, falling to the earth beneath her. ¡°I¡¯ll kill those sons of whores if it¡¯s the last thing I do. I¡¯m gonna find out where they came from and I¡¯m gonna burn their entire fucking kingdom to the ground.¡± For the first time since the death of her mother, Anael prayed aloud. ¡°If you can hear me, Sethil, first child of Kenu, please protect my brothers if they still live. Toran, second child of Kenu, please guide my father¡¯s soul toward the peak of the mountain, as well as my brothers¡¯ if they have fallen.¡± Anael began to stand up when a voice in her head forced her back to her knees. YOU WOULD DO BETTER TO PRAY TO LESSER BEINGS, LITTLE FLAME. YOUR PRAYERS ARE HEARD, BUT LAY UNANSWERED BY THE CHILDREN OF KENU. ¡°What? Who are you? How are y-¡± FIRE ITSELF CONSUMED BY THE CONFLAGRATION OF FURY. DEVOURER OF THE SOULS OF THE UNWORTHY. FOURTH FACET OF SEK¡¯DRELEN. I AM AN OLD FRIEND OF YOURS, LITTLE FLAME. ¡°Fourth facet of¡­ You are His first aspect? What do you mean by lesser beings? How can I hear you?¡± YES. I AM THE RAGE, THE WRATH, THE RAVENOUS FURY THAT CONSUMES CREATION. WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO CALL ME IS IMMATERIAL. I MAY CONVERSE WITH YOU BECAUSE I HAVE CHOSEN YOU. THUS I MUST GRANT YOU A BOON. A SINGLE QUESTION ANSWERED. NO MORE. NO LESS. Anael¡¯s mind churned. She wasn¡¯t even sure she entirely believed in the aspects until now. It was one things to grow up cursing in their name, and praying to them, but quite another to hear a voice in her head. Perhaps she was hallucinating from hunger, pain and trauma. That must be it. I¡¯m dreaming, or hallucinating or something of the sort, I¡¯m - I AM NO MIRAGE, LITTLE FLAME. ¡°Her fucking tears, DON¡¯T DO THAT! What do you mean you¡¯ve chosen me? Does that mean I¡¯ll be a priest? How can I channel your power? YOU CANNOT. A BEING SUCH AS I CANNOT GRANT POWER TO MORTALS. YOUR VERY SOUL WOULD BURN FROM BUT A TOUCH. YOU WOULD BE DRIVEN MAD BY ENDLESS FURY. ¡°So what does being chosen grant me then? Will you help me kill those responsible for killing my father, and possibly my brothers?¡± NO. ¡°What?¡± NO. BEING CHOSEN GRANTS YOU NAUGHT. LESSER BEINGS MAY GRANT THEIR POWER TO MORTALS. YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN NOT TO RECEIVE POWER, BUT TO BE TESTED. IF YOU SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO MASTER MY POWER, WE WILL SPEAK AGAIN. PERHAPS THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND. ¡°Master your power? What do you mean? Is this to do with how you said your are an old friend? You¡¯ve never spoken to me before so how -¡± YOU HAVE FELT FURY IN YOUR HEART LONG BEFORE TODAY, HAVE YOU NOT, LITTLE FLAME? ¡°Has that been you trying to speak to m-¡± Once more the voice interrupted her. IT WAS NOT A GIFT, NOR AN ATTEMPT AT CONVERSATION. I AM THE RAGE, THE WRATH, THE FURY. ALL WHO DESIRE TO DESTROY THOSE WHO HAVE WRONGED THEM HAVE FELT MY POWER. ¡°Ok, I think I understand, you¡¯ve chosen me because I¡¯m really angry¡­ that makes¡­ sense? I guess? What did you mean I¡¯ll be tested?¡± THOSE WHO CAN SENSE THAT YOU ARE CHOSEN. THE LESSER EMBERS WHO DARE CALL THEMSELVES FLAME. THEY FEAR THE FLAME THAT MAY CONSUME THEIR FIRE. NOW ENOUGH. ASK YOUR QUESTION. Ok, is he talking about fire mages? Elementals? People who are less angry than me? I¡¯ll worry about it later. What do I want to know¡­ A piercing pain shot through Anael¡¯s head and her knees buckled further, as if a great force was pushing her into the ground. ASK NOW, LITTLE FLAME. I DO NOT SUFFER HESITATION. OK! OK! His fucking fla- Oh. Well that¡¯s ironic considering who I¡¯m talking to¡­ OK, how about - ¡°Who sent the soldiers who attacked my home?¡± THEY WERE SENT BY ORDER OF THE RULER OF THE LAND YOU KNOW AS GHORM¡¯NTOS. GOODBYE, LITTLE FLAME. DO YOUR BEST TO SURVIVE. I WOULD PREFER TO TAKE YOUR SOUL TO THE MOUNTAIN WHEN YOUR FLAME HAS GROWN. IT IS TOO SMALL YET TO BE WORTHY. ¡°Wait! Can you explain what you meant by lesser beings?¡± Anael¡¯s mind was as silent as the burnt ruins behind her. Fucking aspect. Barely answers my questions, gives me a headache, and makes my life harder than it already was. I should just worship the holy quadrivium like the people over in Zhelteron do. At least they give out healing through their priests instead of cryptic advice and ¡®trials¡¯ like this fucker. The ¡®ravenous fury that consumes creation¡¯ my ass. Arrogant fucking - Anael¡¯s thoughts cut off as a peal of thunder rang out, startling her. It¡¯s just a coincidence, no way I just angered the ancient deity that consumes the souls of those it deems unworthy of the afterlife. Nope, we¡¯re good here. No heresy whatsoever. Nonetheless, Anael¡¯s thoughts stayed far, far away from blasphemy as she quickly stood, shuddered, and returned the shovel to where she had found it behind the forge. So, now I know who¡¯s to blame. Let¡¯s go kill the god-emperor of Ghorm¡¯nTos¡­ After I get some food... Chapter 4 - An Extra Sense After searching through the woods for a bit, Anael found where she had dropped her bow in her rush to get back to town. She had initially planned on perhaps cooking part of the stag she had killed before all of this, but it had already been assaulted by scavengers and there wasn¡¯t enough left in edible condition for her to bother with. Instead of trying to hunt some small animal for dinner, she instead visited a small clearing she was familiar with which was filled with lorberry bushes. After eating her fill and collecting some more in a pouch to eat later, Anael slowly made her way back to the ruined town. Anael sat down on the large steel anvil which sat near the middle of the largely intact forge, and considered what to do and how to accomplish her goals. How am I supposed to kill the ruler of Ghorm¡¯nTos? He¡¯s not called the God-Emperor for nothing. He became a god by pulling himself back from beyond death by sheer force of will, even if I manage to kill him won¡¯t he just do that again? I should probably set my sights lower to start with, I can¡¯t even fight a single trained soldier. I might be able to get one with my bow, but that¡¯s not the same. I need to be able to fight a group of trained warriors and win. I probably need to be able to handle mages too. The only way I have any chance is with magic, which reminds me, what exactly am I feeling in the healing sigil? At first I thought it was just the general presence of flowing mana, but I think I can actually feel the runes and how the mana of different types is flowing through and around each one¡­ Focusing on the feeling in her chest, Anael realized she could actually tell which parts of the sigil had mana in them, and how much was in each. I can actually feel the small amount of ambient mana flowing into the collection array and then transiting the outer circle toward the junction leading to the magic crystal. This is amazing! All those times a sigil malfunctioned and I couldn¡¯t tell what was wrong, where the mana was leaking, or what rune was malformed, if I could have felt this I would have known immediately, or maybe even before activating it. I can even feel the lines where mana isn¡¯t but could be! The more she focused on it, the more Anael was filled with disbelief. The feeling of mana flowing through all of the lines, circles and runes of the sigil was almost indescribable, the way that the mana moved reminded Anael of a line from near the beginning of the First Book of Kenu. ¡°No, The Darkness waxed and waned, slithered and slid, twisted and spun, swirling in great eddies through itself¡± perhaps as Ard¡¯We formed himself from the primordial darkness, I can use this to form myself into a weapon capable of killing a god. It¡¯s like having an extra sense, perhaps this is what mages feel when they cast spells with their own mana. No, it can¡¯t be. I know Zilfa talked about messing up sigils in the same way I do, she could sense the general presence of mana, but I know she couldn¡¯t sense this level of detail. It¡¯s a wonder no one has discovered this before. Well I suppose mages have no reason to risk their life since they probably have no idea about this benefit, they can already use their inner mana for spells, writing (or carving) them on their skin would just force them to. Non-mages generally never learn to make sigils since they would never be able to use many of them without absurdly expensive crystals. I only have the tiny one I do because Zilfa sold it to me for a pittance. It¡¯s not as if I can use any other sigils this way, even with a mana bypass, they would pull in too much of my life force and in the best case I¡¯d pass out every time I activated it. The only reason the healing sigil doesn¡¯t is because it¡¯s used to heal me, putting it back into my body. Anael¡¯s eyes widened as she had a realization. But if I modified the healing sigil with extra connections that took excess mana from the crystal and added other sigils, I could power them through that. Of course I¡¯d need to add some more collection arrays and I¡¯d need to focus on efficiency but¡­ Damn it to the abyss! The crystal¡¯s too small to power any spells worth more than a distraction. A flame sigil might kill someone if it was on my hand and I pressed it to their face, but I¡¯d only be able to use it once, and I¡¯m definitely not going to be throwing lightning around without a bigger crystal or something else capable of holding a lot of mana¡­ Actually, Kelara mentioned that some of the potions she made required a large input of mana from a crystal, she must have had one! Hopefully I can find it, and hopefully it¡¯s bigger than this one. I suppose first I should see if this will work. Anael walked over to the only corner of the two-walled forge and crawled under a workbench. Finding what she was looking for, she pulled the loose face of a brick out from the wall and reached in. At least this is undamaged. Glad I didn¡¯t keep it in the house. Anael pulled out the book of sigilry from which, with Zilfa¡¯s help, she had learned all she knew of magic and mana. Alongside it was her spare bottle of sigiler¡¯s ink and a metal quill that had been a gift from Zilfa after she learned the basic healing sigil. Saving me twice now, Zilfa. I¡¯ll have to get you a gift in return. Glad the ink is here too, I¡¯d rather not use blood for this, I¡¯m wounded enough as it is. While the healing sigil had continued in its work, it was slow enough that it would likely be several more days before Anael was back in top shape. Ok, let¡¯s try this. I¡¯d best use the flame sigil, and the water one uses quite a lot of mana for anything significant. Let¡¯s see. As she paged through the book, finding the list of sigils and the section on basic ones, she noticed a remarkably simple yet efficient sigil for forming light. It just glows a little, but that¡¯s all I need since this is just a test. Better yet it doesn¡¯t take too much mana, so I should be able to power it alongside the healing sigil without any problems, at least for a moment.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Opening the jar of ink and dipping the quill in, Anael concentrated on what she was going to do. She first drew six mana collection arrays around the central healing sigil, connecting them inwards before drawing a circle around the central sigil. And once again, I¡¯m glad not to be more well endowed. Even what I have makes using a bow more difficult and anything larger would making drawing these accurately nearly impossible. Anael could feel the elemental mana flowing into the sigils and pooling in the circle before slowly dispersing back into air since it had nowhere to go. Ok, let¡¯s see how this affects the existing runes. Anael very carefully connected the outer ring to the junction leading to the mana crystal. Immediately she could feel the blocked mana start to flow quite quickly towards the center. Her Lips! That feels good! The healing sigil quickly began to work noticeably quicker and Anael would have sworn she could feel her wounds closing up. At this rate, I might be fully healed by tomorrow. It should be a fourfold increase or so, if I¡¯m not mistaken. It certainly feels like it¡¯s working significantly faster. It hurts a lot less than it did before, too. Now let¡¯s try connecting the light sigil. Anael first drew the entire sigil, making sure that it felt correct. She rubbed away a few areas that seemed wrong to her and inspected the book of sigilry closely, correcting her mistakes. It¡¯s amazing to be able to simply tell that the sigil won¡¯t work by feel. I still need to think to tell what it will do, but at least I can be certain there won¡¯t be mana leakage, or any blocks that might cause it to overload. Once the sigil was completed, Anael prepared to connect it to the mana crystal. Not one to take unnecessary risk, she changed her mind, and connected it to the outer circle so that it would only take mana from the six outer collection arrays. Even if it takes far more mana than I think it will, this way it won¡¯t cause any problems. It¡¯ll just slow the healing back down to what it was before. Anael could feel that only a small portion of the mana was redirected as the central rune of the light sigil began to glow. It was actually quite bright, especially considering that it was daytime. In fact, it was probably enough light to read by if she wanted to. Huh. I was just using this as a test, but it might be a good sigil to have. I could read at night without lighting a candle and, if it isn¡¯t already, with a bit of modification it would be more than bright enough to let me travel at night. Although I suppose I¡¯d then be visible for leagues in any direction. I suppose I might was well leave it on since I¡¯m going to be searching for Kelara¡¯s mana crystal soon. Flipping the pages of the book, Anael searched for the section on the various energies that could be used by sigilry. Ah, here we are: ¡°Elemental Energies, Mana, Will, and the Subdivisions Thereof¡±. Ok, So there¡¯s the six primary elemental mana types, higher order varieties which aren¡¯t normally found ambiently¡­ Ok and here¡¯s the section on will: ----- Will is both the purest form of magical energy and the most difficult to use. Acolytes of most of the older religions will agree that, regardless of how they think our world was created and what deity they hold responsible, all phenomena observable in our world is the result of some external force of will. Whether this is the result of a demiurge imposing their desires on the entirety of existence, or simply some type of ambient energy that cannot be directly harnessed, is unknown, at least to the authors of this volume. Regardless, all living beings cultivate an amount of this energy, which is what allows them to perform the actions that they do. Those with truly massive amounts of Will, referred to by many as ¡°Will-mages¡± can shape the world around them with a thought. The most powerful of these beings can alter the very fundamental nature of themselves and the world around them, making them gods in their own right. What is perhaps more fascinating is that Will, like mana, forms complex fluid lattices that can attune it. While most mages will find that a majority of their mana is attuned to the structure of a certain element, not only is Will capable of attuning itself to more abstract notions, but the vast majority of individuals with any useable Will may find that it is attuned in its entirety to a specific concept. I say concept as the known categories of Will do not restrict themselves to elements. An example of elemental Will, although admittedly high order elements, is the rare incidence of so called ¡°wrights¡±. Fleshwrights have enough will to classify as Will-mages, but rather than being pure, it is attuned entirely to third order flesh element, allowing them to change much of their own body at will, but being unable to affect their bone structure, or anything around them. Bonewrights and Bloodwrights are likewise attuned. In regards to the non-elemental attunements that Will may take, the most common fall into three categories - Emotion, Belief, and Knowledge. Moreover, small amounts of Will aligned with these attunements are present in all people, however amounts large enough to be used are just as rare as other attunements. Followers of the Hierarchy of Kenu will note that the attunements which fall under these three categories align nearly precisely with the domains of the Aspects they revere. While some of course claim that this lends them credence over other religions, scholars have long noted that it is equally likely, or perhaps even moreso, that this part of the religion was modelled after observations rather than the reverse, leaving these Aspects with no more credibility than any of the other deities that have garnered consistent worship for the past several millenia. ----- After finishing that section, Anael was feeling quite indignant. Hey! I get a bit annoyed at one of them and there¡¯s thunder in clear skies and this guy can be as disrespectful as he wants? He should have been struck by lightning at least! Actually I suppose he might have been for all I know¡­ I¡¯m gonna choose to believe he was. It¡¯s only fair to distribute divine judgement equally to everyone¡­ or something like that¡­ Chapter 5 - Hope Focusing intently on the strands of energy flowing through the crystal embedded in her chest, Anael thought she could feel some of the types of Will that the author of the sigilry book had mentioned. Ok, that one feels somewhat cold and¡­ sad? Hmmm. This other one feels much hotter, like a fire. It almost feels hungry, and there¡¯s definitely some fury in there. This one though, is harder to understand. I almost feel disgusted. Is it hate? Contempt? It doesn¡¯t matter anyway there¡¯s not anywhere near enough of it to be useful. There¡¯s far more of both of the others and especially the hot, angry energy. Even that one isn¡¯t enough to do anything though. Maybe that¡¯s what that voice was talking about. If it really was His First Aspect, He would know. Perhaps I can increase how much of this I have. How in the Valley I could do that remains to be seen. In addition to the three energies that seemed to be what the book classified as the ¡°Emotion¡± category of Will, Anael had a vague sense of what some of the others were. These two both feel like they must be Belief, I can¡¯t tell what¡¯s different about them besides that they definitely ARE different. The rest of these are too small and vague to be sure¡­ With that question somewhat answered, I should move on to more useful pursuits. It was growing quite late in the day, and Anael had much she wished to do. For starters, let¡¯s see if I can¡¯t find Kelara¡¯s mana crystal. I can¡¯t imagine she was using anything else to put mana into those potions. Most other methods are more expensive if anything, or require one to have an ample supply of personal mana. Anael returned her prized book and the sigiler¡¯s ink to the metal box she stored them in and hid them once more behind the false brick in the corner of the forge. I can¡¯t afford to lose either of those, especially now that it might be the best way for me to become strong enough to get revenge on that bastard and every one of the soldiers that were here. Anael grabbed her pack and the shovel she had used earlier. She grabbed a few miscellaneous other possibly useful items and shoved them into her pack before slinging it onto her back and heading through the town. Making her way between the ruined buildings, rubble, and charred pieces of what were once people¡¯s homes, Anael began to head toward the west side of town. A walk that once took but a few minutes lasted much longer as Anael had to climb over a few larger piles of debris and take detours where some of the few two story buildings near the center of town managed to collapse into the street, blocking her path. Anael did her best not to look around yet she couldn¡¯t help but notice the bodies of townspeople she passed by. Some were little more than charred skeletons, while others were mostly recognizable with just a few wounds on their bodies. It was probably for the best that she didn¡¯t see the body of anyone she had known well. Considering that the town wasn¡¯t particularly large, however, she did at least recognize the faces of a few of the now dead citizens, each one causing waves of nausea and sorrow to wash over her. When she passed a particularly mutilated corpse of a man who must have fought for quite a while before succumbing to his wounds, Anael gave him a nod of respect and was about to whisper a prayer for his soul when she noticed that the ruined leather the man was wearing had once been a leather apron - in fact, it had been an old, stained leather apron that she was far too familiar with. Recognizing that the corpse in front of her had once been the tanner, Gillian, immediately caused her to lose her stomach, and a large portion of the lorberries she had eaten earlier in the day ended up on the ground. She quickly moved on, desperately trying not to bring up the image of that ruined corpse when she thought of the gruff, old tanner who had helped her gain the money to buy her prized book of sigilry. Even when she was most of the way to her destination each body she passed still triggered a feeling of nausea but it was if, with each brutally murdered or incinerated corpse she saw, her nausea was lessened and replace with a growing cold fury. By the time she made it to what had once been a homely cottage with a beautiful and well tended garden filled with strange smelling herbs and rare plants, she couldn¡¯t keep herself together without letting some of it out. Anael¡¯s voice was perhaps the most calm it had ever been, ¡°I¡¯m coming for you, you sons of whores. Death¡¯s too fucking good for you dickless bastards, but it¡¯s gonna have to do.¡± Anael fell to her knees and punched a charred piece of wood hard enough to scrape the skin off of her knuckles. If anyone had been there, watching her, they would have noticed as the crystal in her chest began to glow slightly. They would have seen it turn a deep crimson as if it were filled with wine or blood, and then be filled with strands of twisting orange. And before watching Anael stand back up, they might have sworn that they could feel the crystal watching them, as if it were a hungry beast and they were a tasty morsel of meat. After picking her way through the charred cottage, which was far easier than searching through the larger and sturdier beams of her home had been, Anael found what she was looking for. A charred, but still intact chest sat in what would have been a corner, covered in a coating of ash. This is the chest were Kelara kept all her most expensive equipment, and potions she had not yet sold. Dusting it off, Anael noticed that, unlike every other time she had seen it, it had no lock on it. There should be a big iron lock on here, unless those soldiers looted everything in here before they left. That seems unlikely considering everywhere else was just burnt and destroyed. They seemed in a hurry. Anael opened the chest and looked inside, seeing what she was looking for and more.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. There¡¯s the crystal, it¡¯s even bigger than I had hoped! Judging by the size, it should be able to hold ten or twenty times as much mana as my current one does if I remember how the formula for capacity works on these things. Too bad I¡¯ve only ever seen a few of these things so I don¡¯t have enough experience to be sure. And here¡¯s some potions, looks like some very nice healing potions, some potions to increase strength and reduce fatigue, and is this a mana potion? Well that¡¯s unexpected. ¡°Who did you make this for, Kelara?¡± Anael mumbled under her breath. After wrapping the all the potions in a cloth, so as to keep their glass bottles from breaking, and placing them into her pack along with what alchemy equipment she felt was worth carrying. In the end she had chosen a rather nice mortar and pestle she had often used when helping Kelara in her work, as well as a purse with two dozen corked glass vials and a reasonably small distillation flask. All the other equipment was either too large, too fragile, or simply not useful in any potions that Anael would likely want to make while traveling. Anael had walked almost all the way back to the forge before she suddenly realized something that she should have noticed back at the cottage - the lack of anyone (dead or otherwise) inside. I didn¡¯t see her corpse outside and there wasn¡¯t anywhere near enough debris inside to hide anything as large as a body. It¡¯s possible that she was elsewhere in town, but she hardly ever strays farther than the edge of her garden. Could Kelara be alive still, just like I¡¯m desperately hoping Harvin and Mel are? Once she arrived back at the forge, Anael sat down on the ground, her back against one of the stone brick walls. Pulling out her knife and the larger mana crystal, she set them in her lap and took a deep breath. Time for more pain. As if I haven¡¯t experienced quite enough of that as of late. Anael reached up to the mana crystal embedded in her chest and tried to get a grip on it with her fingernails to pull it out, but it was too well embedded and the skin around it was already well on its way to being healed. Of course it¡¯s not going to be that easy. At least I shouldn¡¯t have to cauterize it this time. That would require some preparation anyway. While many of the buildings in the town were still emitting plumes of smoke, and there might well be some embers she could get her hands on, it was unlikely that there were any coals hot enough to heat her knife to the required temperature. If she wanted to cauterize any wounds now, Anael would have to gather some unburned wood and start a fire of her own, perhaps in the forge. Luckily, the healing sigil should heal it fast enough with it¡¯s new speed. Picking up her knife in one hand and keeping her other hand ready to help, Anael steadied herself. Time to see how this works. She slowly dug the knife into the side of the mana crystal so as to lever it out, gritting her teeth the whole time. ¡°Sodelri¡¯s rotten cunt!¡± Anael cursed loudly as the crystal was levered out of its place. Not only was she digging around in her chest with a knife, but the crystal had seemed to partially bond with her skin, necessitating some cutting to free it. Worse than that though, was that when the crystal finally came out, falling into her lap and getting more blood on her pants than was already there, the healing sigil ceased functioning. Fucking abyss! I forgot that all the mana has to pass through the crystal in order to get to the component sigil that does the actual healing. At least the bypass is fine, so I won¡¯t die. I didn¡¯t realize how much that sigil was helping with the pain. I didn¡¯t realize it could get so much worse than it already fucking was. Quickly picking up the slightly larger mana crystal with trembling hands, Anael pressed it into the open wound in the center of her chest and felt the skin stretch slightly as it slipped into place and the healing sigil started its work once more. Thank Sethil it¡¯s working. And now I¡¯m very glad that the capacity of these crystals isn¡¯t directly proportional to their size. If it was, a crystal with this capacity would definitely not have fit. Anael didn¡¯t understand exactly why the capacity of mana crystals grew at such a higher rate than their size, but Zilfa had mentioned that it was due to the stability of the lattice that actually contained the mana. Somehow larger crystals with a low capacity per volume ratio were inherently unstable, and so either didn¡¯t form, or collapsed upon reaching a large enough size. While this meant there were no huge crystals with small capacities, there did exist very small crystals with monstrously large capacities, which were, of course, even more obscenely expensive and rare than a large sized crystal of the same capacity. As her small amount of mana, and the much more significant ambient mana, coursed through the revitalized sigil, Anael¡¯s mouth curled into a smile. This is even better than I thought. This crystal¡¯s capacity feels like closer to twenty five times the other, rather than ten or twenty. With the amount of power I¡¯ll have when this thing is full, I could certainly take down and armed foe. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if this was enough to handle four or even five armored soldiers. Remembering the potions she had found in Kelara¡¯s cottage, she carefully pulled them from her pack and unwrapped one. She lifted the mana potion up to her lips and took the tiniest of sips. Feeling the mana rush through her body and fill the newly embedded crystal almost to full, Anael couldn¡¯t help but grin so wide she felt like it reached her ears. WIP Map of the Graemarch So I''ve been gone for a while because my life is complicated in ways I don''t think I can talk about here. Not an excuse, just a fact. After some consideration I think I''m gonna be continuing this story at some point, and even if I don''t there will be other stories taking place in the same world, so I''m posting a VERY ROUGH work in progress map of the area where this takes place. I have a habit of planning things in broad strokes so I had mostly written off large sections of the Graemarch as just lists of places and hadn''t adequetly considered the exact locations relative to each other. (note that I scribbled out the right arrow pointing to Anael''s home, because I lost my eraser and messed up how far east/west it should be lol. The left dot is the correct one. It needs to be closer to Low Nemil and farther from Ghorm''nTos for things to make sense later, I''m dumb lol) I''m actually still working on fleshing out alot of this region, because it''s a bit out of the way. It''s actually at the northern most part of the known mortal lands. Any further than that and there are older things lurking in the fells. Because of that there''s alot of weird cultures and old religions that I''ve only given cursory attention to. On the good side, it has some of my favorite leaders, gods, and other historical characters. I don''t know if Anael will encounter any of them, but the other fiction I''ve decided to work on right now also takes place in the Graemarch. I''ve got some plans that I don''t want to spoil but I''m hoping that if I get to them, y''all will like the Armor Queen as much as I do and that the Marrow and the Bladelings come across as badass in words as they are in my head. I''m also really hoping that I can figure out how to protray the sacking of Sorrow''s Throne how I want to and that Norotak''Hrim turns out more nuanced and less despicable. It''s weird to be trying to write all these events and places into a narrative when they''ve all only existed in my scatterbrained mind and my disorganized google docs.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Here''s the shitty map: https://imgur.com/a/dZ0SC Wish me luck and motivation I''ll need it not a chapter TL;DR at bottom. So I''d like to apologize. My life has been very hectic. But then most people''s lives are hectic. Whatever the reason or the validity of my excuses. Runes Like Veins has had a minimal amount written in the last however many months it has been. Sorry. The good news is that I''ve written a few short chapters for Gods of the Graemarch (which takes place here) which may motivate me to write more of this. I''ve also started a story that''s mostly designed to help me get better at writing. I''m neither skilled nor experienced enough to do justice to how I''d like to portray alot of this. So I''m writing a story as it bleeds out of my head. No planning (well, not NONE, but not years of google docs that I have to reference) it''s honestly a relief. I don''t have to cross reference a billion documents to find the name of an obscure deity, I can just write a narrative.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. I''ve further refined the etiology of Sek''Drelen but that''s immaterial to any of this. So what matters: Runes Like Veins is in indeterminate Hiatus, but I''m feeling more motivated than I have been New story with some chapters written - I like the short chapter thing, it''s a lot easier to motivate myself to just write a chapter if it can be short, writing 300 words a day is better than writing nothing for a month and then 2k in one sitting. I made a wordpress site for ease of posting - http://phifell.com/ Anything on there is WIP, and may be changed on a whim. I''ll try to keep things here on RRL mostly edited and not change things up too constantly. but also that means the wordpress will get chapters earlier because I can post them there, edit later, and then post here. editing/posting here is more of a hassle, especially anything experimental like a new story. and everything has to be ordered whereas I can categorize things there. anyway rant over. I felt putting this not-a-chapter notice here was the best way to go about this instead of just silently making a new fiction. hopefully I haven''t annoyed anyone. Thanks! <3 -Phi