DearSpellbook
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Chapter 9: Discipline
🕑 Added 2024-09-13 08:00:21 +0000 UTCMaximilian Amadeus Derringer the 9th, or Max the Mad as they call him now, is one of the rare demi-gods who ascended—not through great deeds of heroism or destruction—but a concerted campaign of annoyance. Gifted with an incredibly power Sound affinity—due in part to his blood line as a descendant of Riloth—MAx devised a plan to ascend. He was born near the end of the Age of Heroes, when the mechanism of ascension had been discovered. When he learned of his divine heritage, he set out a plan to maximize his renown. He figured that if being fear or loved by thousands could cause a god to ascend, annoying millions should work as well.
It is worth nothing that his birth name was Winton Clark, but he changed it to add to his legend
Max went to every major city in the cradle of the Illusian races, armed with his Sound magic, and an instrument of his own invention—a kazoo. He played the instrument, for hours on end, projecting the sound all over the city. It only took 4 cities, three arrests, and one near execution, but in just under a year, Max went from unknown sorcerer of little renown, to demi-god. The specifics of his domains are debated, but the few recorded to have been Blessed by him were all people who accomplished great deads via unorthodox means.
-Excerpt from Wicket’s Guides to the Pantheon.
As Zale predicted, Rakin was released the next day, not even receiving any magical healing, his injuries being mostly superficial.
Each member of Forsaken was given a disciplinary task suited for their skills.
Zale was assigned to tutor a particularly bratty noble born first year in the rapier—illusion bracer active to prevent starting an incident. The student wasn’t in adventuring track but many such students came to the school to learn to manage their holdings and the other skills required for life of a noble.
Doug was assigned to tending to the pincer vines, a strain of carnivorous plant that fed on insects and small birds, but snacked on any person who got too close.
Rakin didn’t speak of his own punishment detail, only saying that it was assigned by his mentor Master Ahm, and that the monk seemed to take great pleasure in Rakin’s misery.
Kole, as was no surprise to anyone, was assigned to the library.
“I have other useful skills,” Kole said, when his friends had pointed out the inevitability of that assignment.
“Name one,” Rakin said.
In response, Kole turned invisible.
“I’m not sure that's the type of skill the faculty are interested in exploiting,” Zale said diplomatically.
His task, was to go through the spellbooks the school’s library had recently acquired, and document the spells within. This task, typically assigned to Professor Lonin’s students, was generally reserved for third years, so in some respects, it was a great honor. But, in other, more realistic and sane respects, it was boring. Very boring.
At first, Kole hadn’t minded, finding it a great opportunity to discover a few novel spellform components, but as he spent more and more in a library and not actually studying, the more he began to grow stir-crazy—a new sensation for the bookish student.
After the first day of work, when he was let go at dinner, he skipped the meal for the day, instead using the time to search read through the books on Light magic Theral had recommended he find. The book itself was a copy of the spellbook of the famed Galok Lightsmith, a man in a similarly unique situation as Kole.
Galok was a wizard with a strong affinity for Light, and was Blessed by his friend Tin Lan when Tin Lan ascended to demi-godhood. The Blessing further enhanced his connection to the Font of Light, allowing him to create works of Light magic no others have been able to replicate.
While Kole’s confluence of magical conditions wasn’t the same as Galok, he was a highly focused wizard, and Theral had recommended he look at Galok’s spells. If he had to look through hundreds of years of traditional spellbooks on Light, why not pick the universally acknowledge best?
Sorting spells through the day, and then working on his own magic deep into the night—and occasionally during work hours, as he did still want to maximize his Will usage. Letting his Will stay topped off while he worked, loosing out of the passive regeneration was just not something he could suffer on top of being trapped in a library forced to work instead of study.
Kole spent the first week of his disciplinary rotation in isolation, falling back into old habits that had only been broken by Zale’s insistence on maintaining a training schedule. While he did see his friends each night briefly in their shared home, when he explained his need to stay up late just to have enough waking time to use up his Will they let him bow out of the morning training they were still doing.
“Really"?” Kole had asked as Zale let it go without complaint. “No lecture?”
“Wizardry is your primary asset. If there is only time for that or physical conditioning, that takes priority. We don’t want to stop your progress, but you really should find time to go for walks in between your studying.” Zale explained, and then added. “And, I don’t lecture.”
The last statement earned a bark of laughter from Rakin.
“I do?” Zale asked, eyes growing wide in horror “Like my mom?”
Rakin nodded, and Zale let out a groan.
So, in between spellbooks, Kole would read a page of Galok’s, working slowly but steadily to recreate the spell Radiant Bolt.
Despite his distractions, Kole was by far the most productive member of the library’s work crew. He had actualy begun working on his own spellcraft in an effort to slow his pace to match that of the oldest worker and not stnd out too much.
The other student workers were anywhere from 17 to 20, and he outperformed them all, quickly indexing the spells in each spellbook, and noting any particularities of interest in their construction that one might desire to reference. The existence of these notes in and of themselves was a great discovery for Kole, and once he’d read through the methodology, he was certain he’d be able to use them to speed up his pathing.
Not all were doing the task as a punishment. Other students in Loni’s program were assigned the task as a form of study, while others were simply being paid. Kole weighed the option of doing more of this work for money at a later date, but he was, fortunately past the desperate financially straights he’d been in just a month prior.
So, while he hated that the work kept him from fully diving into his work on Radiant Bolt, it wasn’t a total waste of his time.
He worked at it up until New Year's Eve, when the head librarian came up to him, sober expression on his face. The librarian was a halfling man, dressed in well tailored but simple browns, which fit the halfling sensibilities of expensive apparel without standing out too much in the poorer clothing typical to a librarian.
The head librarian, Gophin Barkburrow was directly in charge of their work group, but aside from the initial introduction, he’d not done more than check up on them all week.
“What did I do now?” Kole asked, mentally running through what he’d done.
He handed Kole a slip of paper. He looked at it, and saw a what appeared to be a standardized message form, but written on the magic paper he’d become very familiar with.
12-30-821 13:45 Administrator Kelina Carver
Send Kole Teak to my office immediately.
Oh no! Kole thought now certain he’d done something horrible, and completly unsure of what it could be.
Comments
TK523
I figured out what happened. I did schedule this chapter.. .for Monday.
TK523
Sorry everyone, it's fixed now. I know I have been making some Patreon goofs lately but I have no idea how this one happened. I distinctly remember uploading the right chapter because I tweaked the name of the god in the chapter to be Max from what it was. Also, since I'm here. The next few epigraphs will be nods to people in the PF/LitRPG community I hung out with at DragonCon. Can you figure out who this one is?
FeyOne
Didn’t we already read this chapter earlier today n the week?
Jacob
Wrong chapter?
