The Resigned Dilettante
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Chapter 117: Clutching the Last Wisps of Power
🕑 Added 2025-11-04 04:10:49 +0000 UTCI leave Lingonhill more laden than I arrived: three extra heavy crossbows, a handful of magic bolts, a light item, a spyglass and a tidy amount of assorted coin. I first head to one of the towns that Bart’s agent was headed to and kill the contractor – another poisonous innkeeper – he intended to hire against Ser Terry.
It’s probably not necessary, but better to do it anyways just in case Bart sent someone else after all. Besides, I need to do some anthropomancy to flood out any divinations against me for a while. I’ll probably have to find two more sets of live entrails on the way home just to be safe, but it should be doable.
That done, I head to the cave I left Pelliphos, but night falls before I get there with another storm rolling in, so I stop to take a look at the stolen spellbook. It has a number of rather good spells in it. Nothing I couldn’t find elsewhere, but certainly plenty that’s worth starting on while the iron is hot.
The first several spells of note are upgrades to the basic illusion spell I just learned. The first two are a bit weird as upgrades, as one just creates a still image and the other a sound. Why the upgraded versions would just be separating image from sound is beyond me. However, it does at least promise an increase in the quality of illusion. The image is said to be very realistic by default, and focus can be spent to increase details and the sound will no longer have the echo quality to it.
The other two illusions are the silence zone I’ve seen so often – referred to by the book as ‘quiet place’ – and a disguise spell that sticks to existing surfaces.
I decide to study them all. Not because I intend to use them all, but because the book says they’re precursors to more useful ones. A detailed and flexible general illusion spell that be altered or make sounds tied to or separate from an image and after that a direct invisibility spell. The latter will likely take a year to acquire even with tonight’s boost, but combining it with concealment will be a significant advantage.
But first I focus on spells I’m already learning. With aid from the storm, I learn four in one night; an astounding breakthrough surpassing even last night’s. They are the area version of plant growth; an upgrade to my healing spell capable of rapidly healing bone damage and suffuse an area to erase bruises; the power upgrade to the guidance spell which increases the projectile’s velocity mid flight; and the vision upgrade to the remote sense spell.
Fortunately, the last one doesn’t require carving new symbols on the tokens to use, so I quickly test it out by targeting the coins left at Lingonhil to check the situation out. The coin I left by the cave mouth is of course buried, but the ones I left on the other hills are fine and grant an excellent view.
It’s a bit of a strain, and the vision a bit dark, as even boosted I’m at the extreme range of the spell. But I’m able to make out that Vincent, or at least his underlings are still camped in town. I can’t tell what they’re doing, and the tokens are too far away for sound. Perhaps they’re waiting on someone or plan on moving out in the morning. But it’s at least good to know they’re not chasing Ser Terry.
Noticeably, the Viscount’s daughter (her house burned down) has her own camp with fewer troops on the other side of the village. It would seem that her father’s enthusiasm for the Princep did not transfer to her, or at least did not survive encountering the Princep in person.
The sun sets but I stay around for another two hours to learn more spells by force. I don’t learn anything else, but I do make progress on all my spells. I also start learning four more spells from the spellbook, putting the total spells I’m currently learning into the double digits. It’s typically not advised to spread one’s learning so thin, but it’d be a waste not to right now.
The spells I start are fireball, glide, gather water and light orb. Fireball is much harder than the rest, and I make little progress. However, knowing the firestreams do help a little, and I’m nearing an upgrade to them which will accelerate it even more. Fortunately, the mage has the standard fireball, which is an even mixture of concussive force and heat rather than versions that focus on one or another. The pure flame one isn’t as useful against mages and knights, while the concussive focus one isn’t as useful against mundanes and doesn’t spread fires. Moreover, the latter will be redundant if I ever learn to cast cascade orbs.
Glide will make Ellen happy that I’m no longer as at risk jumping off the spindle. It’s not as hard as fireball, but is still classified as a field spell, plus it has no basic spell to make it easier.
Gather water, besides always having access to clean drinking water, should help dissolve corpses balls when no convenient source is around. It creates an orb in the palm of the hand which grows at a rate proportional to the surrounding moisture. It doesn’t control the orb, meaning the practical size is limited by the use’s strength, but the orb does adhere to the hand to make it easier to handle. You can also create a breach in the surface to cause the fluid to eject from it.
Finally light orb. It’s a simple spell that creates cold light on a touched surface of any desired colour. It can be bright enough to hinder vision, or dim enough to be barely visible, and made to emit in only one direction. It’s a bit redundant with my night vision from the cat god et al., and my two different light items, but it has some utility and leads to some interesting spells.
I am a bit worried that I’m cramming in so many basic spells since the school is expecting me to grow in spell difficulty not just variety. Lightning bolt was meant to be my first showcase of progress, but of course I don’t dare reveal it now after using it to kill two members of a Princep’s escort. In fact, I’ll probably have to waste a few sessions pretending to still learn it in public.
…I’m certain I’m overly worried. It’s only been a few weeks since school started. I doubt they’d start assessing progress at least until the end of the semester, and it’s not like I’m making no progress for more advanced spells that I can reveal, and variety is still nice. Still, it’s a bit frustrating that I can’t show off my three best spells (liquifying beam, concealment and lightning bolt) since that means I have to work that much harder just to seem adequate.
I again spend a while after the storm exhausting my list of spells, again making months of progress in a few hours. When the Eye slams shut on the last one I run back to Pelliphos and find him still in the cave.
He’s a bit annoyed when I get back as he’d already drank all of the clean water I left him and had to make do with a puddle of dirty rain water that made its way inside. Apparently, his chimeric parts makes him pickier about such things, or maybe he’s just taking the opportunity to complain to a rider that can listen.
The night is still cloudy and dark so we can’t safely go faster than a trot, but I see no reason to let him rest more when I don’t have anything else to do and know I won’t be able to sleep until the boon ends.
Before we leave though, I decide to perform an experiment. I take out one of the glands I took from the chimeras and plant it into the ground then cast rapid plant growth on it. Something slams shut and prevents it from working, which is actually more hopeful than expected. I’m still able to target it, which I wouldn’t be able to if it was entirely forbidden.
In a burst if intuition, I instead cast the basic version of the spell with the idea that I have already negotiated for it to work on magical plants such as the berry staff. There’s still a barrier in the way, but I feel it give. So, I spend another hour negotiating with the Eye.
It’s quick to come to terms. Beyond the normal knowledge costs, it agrees to let me grow it using the basic version, but indefinitely forbids me from using the advance versions of the spell on any Syranthuse or the Berry Staff until I get more advanced forms of the spell. Other magical plants will be negotiated separately.
Finding the terms acceptable (getting rapid growth to work on the staff seems like a whole other major deal that I don’t know if I’d be willing to pay for) I start growing the plant from the seed. While I wait, I give Pelliphos a brushing and tend to some of his other needs. The plant takes several hours to grow despite only reaching a foot in height. Once it produces seeds though, I snatch it up and ride off into the night at a slow but steady speed.
I stop at sunrise to learn a few more spells, then two more times to clear out potential contracted killers ahead of Ser Terry, prolonging the time left with the boon just a little more and further obscuring my trace with anthropomancy. Then, a few hours before sunset, I find another cave to rest. Pelliphos complains, but I don’t want to come out of this much power around other people.
I take care of Pelliphos, then find a good spot to spend my last session under this boon. There’s an oak tree on top of the hill which I find fitting, and so climb up it and wait for sunset (it seems that each rise and set resets how much the eye is willing to let me learn).
There’s no storm tonight, unfortunately, but there is a bit of rain and chilling wind. Good enough, I suppose.
Along with this morning I learn five more spells. Two of them (gather water and light orb) are wholly new, while the rest are things I’ve been learning for a while. The first is the multi-target version of the guidance spell – now allowing me to mark additional targets with one casting (even expanding it to those I couldn’t see when I first cast the spell) and share the effect with allies.
Next is an upgrade to the firestreams, which makes them hotter, farther reaching and quicker to cast. It’s something to do with consolidating certain concepts of air, but I forget what exactly. The lesser firestream is now only two words long and takes a fraction of a second to cast, and can lead into the greater version which is only one additional word. It’s difficult to judge how much hotter it is exactly, but I would guess it’s hotter than any but the most advanced ranged fire spells. Capable of at least causing burns on all but the most robust heat warding, though likely not enough to stop a knight from reaching me in full plate.
Last is the same area shield that I saw Bart’s and Vincent’s mages use. I’m surprised that I managed to learn it even with the boons, as it’s just as complex as lightning bolt. It’s very standard for a mage to know it, but still good enough to report to the school to avert suspicion. It works a bit differently than the personal shield spell. It’s more flexible; allowing things to penetrate easier, but is harder to collapse. People can even walk right through it, though it will slow them down.
Unfortunately, while I can have the personal and area shield up at the same time, this combination has a special strain increase, causing a slight headache even under the boon. I doubt I’d be able to pull it off without it. Well, I suppose that’s what enchanted clothing is for, and the book does mention that efficiency can be trained for.
After the eye slams closed on the last spell, I finally feel the boon begin to fade. Not wanting to be outside when it ends, I go back to the cave and lay down in my bedroll as I wait for the agony of normalcy to return.
