I lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, notifications flashing in my vision, my thoughts whirling furiously. My body ached, and my wounds throbbed, but they no longer burned, at least. Plus, I didn’t feel like I was about to collapse. I didn’t feel good, precisely, but I felt like with a night’s rest or so – and maybe some food – I’d be fine.

“What just happened?” I asked Sara silently. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, John. You did. I just showed you how, is all.”

Notification icons flashed in my vision, and I pulled them up and read through them slowly and carefully.

Doorworld: Soluminos

Magic Rating: 43

Tech Rating: 51

Bio Rating: 26

Analyses:

Magic – Soluminos is a world of moderate magic. Most intelligent beings can use magic in minor ways through faith, oaths, or small acts of will. Trained individuals can cast standard-grade spells, and highly trained and talented casters can use higher magic. Magic in Soluminos stems from the Sun and the moons. Solar magic focuses on healing, growth, and revitalization. Lunar magic can damage, destroy, and control, but it can also empower. While common belief holds that the three lunar magics – Bestial, Blood, and Death – are separate forms, in truth they are closely bound and originally had a common source.

tech – Technology in this world allows complex machines, advanced metallurgy, and the creation of high-quality alloys. Chemical combustion functions weakly, and machines can be powered mechanically through wind and water-driven engines. More advanced power generations, including electrical devices, do not work.

Biology – This world has a low degree of biodiversity. Most niches have one or two creatures inhabiting them at most, and these species have only slight diversity across biomes, meaning they may struggle in certain climates or terrains to which they are ill-adapted. Evolution is a glacially slow process without magical or technological interference.

Spell: Solar Strike has upgraded to Twilight Strike

Raju Required: 3 Solar, 2 Lunar (Blood)

You empower a weapon with Solar and lunar Raju. Your next strike ignores 90% of armor and does lingering damage equal to 50% of base damage per second for 3 seconds.

New Stat Unlocked: Lunar Raju (Blood)

Lunar Raju: 85 (29 Blood)

Lunar raju is the magical energy that powers lunar magic on Soluminos. Your pool of lunar raju is based on your perception and prowess stats and can be increased by taking specific professions.

Lunar raju is inherently imbalanced and destabilizing to its wielders. Those who use it find that it builds up within them, weakening their body, intellect, or vital essence.

Lunar raju is separated into three subsets: Bestial, Blood, and Death. Each must be unlocked separately.

Blood magic affects the physical body of the subject. It has limited utility in healing, but it can be used to control a living body or to allow it to ignore pain and injury. Powerful blood magic can allow the caster to exceed their body’s limitations and perform supernatural feats or to drain the health from another and boost the caster with it.

New Stat Unlocked: Lunar Raju (death)

Lunar Raju: 85 (28 Death)

Death magic is the antithesis of life. It weakens and degrades living creatures, attacking not their bodies but their vital essence. Powerful death magic can also grant false life to a recently dead corpse or return an undead to its rest.

Profession Unlocked: Etfelyen (Twilight Mage)

Extraordinary

A mage who can meld solar and lunar raju together into a more powerful type of magic.

“Wait – lunar magic?” I asked. “I was using lunar magic?”

Sara appeared before me, hovering horizontally in the air to face me in a truly disturbing fashion. She nodded solemnly. “Yes, John. In fact, you’ve been using it without realizing all along, and that’s actually what was messing with my calculations.”

“How?”

“How what? How were you using it, or how was it throwing off my analysis of this world?”

I grimaced. “How about both?”

She smiled at me. “Of course. If you read my analysis of this world’s magic, you’ll notice that almost everyone uses it in minor ways all the time. You’ve seen that yourself, when people offer the Moon’s Truce or say their daily devotions to the Sun. For the first, they’re swearing a magically binding oath not to harm one another while the threat of the close moon exists. For the second, they’re transferring their innate power to the Sorvaraji so she can use it to cast a spell.”

“Right, I remember we talked about that.”

She nodded again. “Yes, we did. Well, I could tell that you were using solar magic in minor ways, as we discussed, but I didn’t realize that the other energy field you were tapping was lunar magic.” She grimaced. “I thought it was a part of the world’s inherent energy, to be honest, and since its primary function seemed to be to limit magic to keep it from becoming imbalanced, I assumed it did the same for technology. That’s how it would normally work, after all.

She shook her head. “Once I realized that the lmoraji was right, though, and that all of the three lunar magics are just aspects of one larger, unified field – the three moons, joined as one of the augury – it all clicked into place. You’ve been tapping that combined field without realizing it to smooth out your solar spells and keep them from collapsing. You used a big chunk of death magic to create your turning shield, in fact, and a little blood magic to stabilize your solar strike. You just never did it deliberately before, is all, but now that you’ve unlocked it, you can use it freely.”

I snorted. “Yeah, except for the whole ‘it’ll drive you insane’ part, that sounds great.”

“We’ll work on that. Honestly, I could see the degradation in the lomoraji – he’d built up a large excess of bestial magic in his system, and it was why he sometimes reacted oddly to things – so I’ll be watching for any signs of that in you. If it starts to build up in your system, you might have to stop using it.”

I nodded, then examined the rest of the notification. “What’s this about higher magic?”

“Higher magic is a type of magic that moves beyond the normal limitations of spellcasting. High magic spells require intense training and often take years just to cast.” She smiled at me. “In other words, you won’t be tossing one about any time soon, I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine. I still think it’s cool that I can do magic at all.” I read over the new profession a couple of times, then added it with a shrug.

Profession Chosen:

Etfelyen

Extraordinary

Primary Stats:

Intuition, Perception, Vigor, Skill

Skills Gained:

Twilight Mastery

Abilities Gained:

Resist Magic, Twilight Casting, See magic

Skill: Twilight Mastery

Rank: Neophyte 1

Benefits: +1% to efficacy of all solar or lunar spells per rank, double for twilight spells.

Ability: Resist Magic

Passive Defensive Ability

You gain inherent resistance to all forms of magic equal to your Intuition x3.

Ability: Twilight Casting

Inherent Spell Ability

You can cast spells using both solar and lunar magic without reducing their effectiveness.

Ability: See Magic

Passive Detection Ability

You can see the presence of any form of magic. Distance is based on your Perception.

“This one sounds pretty well suited for me – but the name is different from the others. It doesn’t have ‘raji’ in it, for one thing.”

“It’s based on the naming I’ve extrapolated from the Himlenrik Empire,” she laughed. “I doubt it’s what they called people like this, but it might be similar, and this way, it’s set apart from the other caster professions. Using both makes your spells more powerful, but the people here seem to believe that you can only use one type of magic or the other. That’s probably why Renica couldn’t learn to use solar magic. She’s obviously got the talent for lunar magic, instead.”

“Renica!” I rose to a sitting position and saw the woman lying on the floor, Vikarik at her side, nuzzling and licking her. I pushed myself to my feet and took a step toward the woman, but the cairnik let out a low growl, and I froze.

“Easy, there, girl,” I said softly. “I’m just making sure your mistress is okay.” I took another step forward, and the dog’s growl intensified. I readied my Twilight Strike spell, wrapping it around my fist just in case; I didn’t want to hurt the animal, but I’d rather have it die than Renica.

Vikarik kept growling as I approached, but she didn’t move to attack me, even when I knelt beside Renica and rolled her gently onto her back. I felt across the woman’s skull for lumps, pried open her eyelids to examine her pupils, and squeezed her shoulders and pressed her hips to check for dislocations. Everything seemed fine; she was just asleep.

“The lomoraji probably used all this ambient energy to put her out with bestial magic,” Sara guessed. “It affects the mind, after all, so it should be able to put someone to sleep easily enough.”

“So, how long will she stay out?” I asked tiredly.

“Probably until sunrise. The moons’ power will weaken then, even down here, which should break the spell. If it doesn’t, you might need to carry her out of the Darkwood Heart; it’s likely that the Heart weakens the Sun’s power, so it might not be strong enough to purge her of the spell’s effects.”

“Well, we might as well make her comfy until then,” I sighed, grabbing her pack and taking out her bedroll. I laid it out and placed her on it with Vikarik watching me closely the whole time. Once she was settled, I walked over to the fallen lomoraji. After all, I’d come here for a purpose, and I’d hoped that the lomoraji could give me some answers.

His treasured book lay fallen on the floor, dropped when Vikarik first attacked. I picked it up and examined it; the writing below the gold and silver circle on the front was blocky and unfamiliar, and I opened it up, scanning through the pages.

“Got it,” Sara said after a moment. The writing shimmered and swam, resolving itself into legible characters a moment later. “Congratulations, you can now read and understand Imperial.”

The cover merely read, “Casting Primer, Level 2”. I skimmed through the pages briefly, not really reading them but allowing Sara to take them in. The book shifted from texts to elaborate diagrams, with pentagrams inscribed within hexagons, and convoluted figures that wrapped around them both.

“Whoa,” Sara said appreciatively. “This is a really complex spell, John.”

“What does it do?” I asked.

“Looks like it locates water, guides the caster to it, then brings it to the surface in a spring,” she said.

“That’s it?” I had to admit, I was a bit disappointed. I thought that the spells of the man who’d conquered an entire continent would be – flashier.

“That’s a big deal if you think about it. That whole system that Barova’s got to pump water? This spell replicates it, but it could be cast in a couple of hours, not dug out and built up over years. You could build villages around this spell, John – or even cities.”

I flipped the page. “What’s this? A spell that turns animals into food?”

She laughed. “It’s a defensive shield,” she said. “A static one, like you’d use on a battlefield to protect an emplacement.”

“That’s more like it,” I grinned.

We went through the book in an hour or so, and when we finished, I flipped back to the first page. “So, what does this tell us? Anything useful?”

“Well, it depends on your definition of useful,” Sara hedged. “There’s nothing in it that says, ‘If you want to conquer the Sun, cast this spell at this time and place’, if that’s what you mean.”

I grunted. “That would have been awesome, but no, I wasn’t expecting that. What does it say, though?”

“This is part of a primer for novice spellcasters,” she explained. “And not just any casters – casters like you, who can use both solar and lunar magic in concert. I think that every caster in the Himlenrik Empire – or at least, the followers of Florin – could use both types of magic, John.”

“That would explain why they were so much more powerful than anyone else,” I grunted. “It doesn’t say how to use lunar magic safely, does it?”

She shook her head. “It’s the second book in a series, and it seems to assume that the reader knows how to access both solar and lunar magic, so that must all be in book one, sorry.”

I sighed. “Of course, it is. So, what’s in this one that might be useful?”

“The first half of the book is magical theory, mostly about how to use rituals to empower your spells, and what you can do when a ritual isn’t powerful enough to do the job. As you saw, the second half is specific rituals, but it also describes how to break those apart and use the pieces to create new spells.”

She shook her head. “John, this book – it’s much more advanced than the one that Viora has. I mean, it’s the difference between algebra and calculus, or between learning your alphabet and writing short stories. The theories alone are decades ahead of anything in the book, and the spells? They’re ridiculously complex, even the simplest of them. I don’t think that Viora could take this book and get anything useful from it, not even an unbalanced, solar-only version of a spell. It’s just too complicated.”

I looked over at the fallen lomoraji, then down at his clumsily written ritual. “So, if someone as practiced and skilled as Viora couldn’t create a spell from this – how could this guy do it?”

“I don’t know, John. I mean, obviously, he did…”

“Or someone did it for him,” I replied grimly. “Maybe someone far more skilled and knowledgeable gave him this spell and sent him out as a sort of trial run.” I snorted. “I doubt anyone would miss the guy if it failed, after all.” I walked back over to the guy and began rifling through his clothes.

“What are you looking for? Do you think he might have orders from whoever sent him?”

“No, that would defeat the purpose of sending him way out here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say this guy succeeded and managed to somehow turn the power of the silver moon into bestial energy,” I said, pulling everything from his pockets. “I’m pretty sure that would have driven the animals in the forest absolutely wild, and the moment the close moon was over, the locals would send for someone official to come look into it. If he had a note from whoever was in charge, then the moment they caught him, they’d know exactly who to blame.”

“That’s a good point. So, what are you hoping to find?”

“Well, just because he probably isn’t holding a note from his boss doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything on him that might be useful,” I said. “Most people like to write things down that they shouldn’t, after all. It’s all about finding where he keeps it.”

He wasn’t carrying anything terribly valuable or important on him. His pockets held a dozen or so coins, mostly copper with some silver, all of which I pocketed; a stub of candle; a piece of flint that he probably used to start fires; an ornate knife that I guessed he’d used to sacrifice the animals for his rituals; and a silver chain with an opalescent gem at the end. That hummed faintly with power, and I pocketed it, intending to examine it later, then began to strip him of his clothes.

“See, now that’s interesting,” I thought silently, staring at a tattoo on the man’s upper arm. It was expertly done, an image of a stylized sun with what looked like two feather quills crossed over it. “I’ll be that means something, if we could find the right person to ask.”

“It does look like the symbol of some sort of organization,” Sara agreed.

“Exactly. Now, to toss the room.”

The books on the shelves were just as rotted and ruined as I’d suspected. Most of them were utterly illegible, and the rest had only fragments of text that I could make out. Behind them, though, I found a much newer book, pressed flat against the back of the bookshelf, bound in cracked, black leather, with a simple silver circle and no words on the front. I flipped it open and scanned it quickly, leafing through the pages to allow Sara to absorb the material for me.

“It’s his personal spell book, John,” she said after we reach the end. “It’s got some of his thoughts about the moons and how they’re linked. He also talks about something called ‘The Archives’, and how he found things in it that the Vanatori tried to cover up.”

I went through the rest of his belongings next, dumping them out and picking through them. For a man who claimed to love animals, he had a lot of meat in his pack, along with some flour, a few pots and pans, and a waterskin filled with dark water that I guessed was from the lake above. I shuddered at the thought of drinking from that; it couldn’t be good for the man. He also had a single dark green glass bottle that looked like wine; I put that into my pack. I hadn’t seen any wine around Borava, but I didn’t know if that was because wine wasn’t common in the area, or if the villagers simply preferred beer. I hoped for the former; if wine was an uncommon beverage, then the bottle might give me some clues to follow.

Finally, I rifled through Emil’s bedding, finding mostly the big cat’s waste, some half-gnawed bones, and a few rotting animal carcasses buried in the mess. I also found a heavy leather pouch; I opened it and found it had two inner pockets. One was filled with golden coins, at least thirty or forty of them; the other held small, polished stones of different colors that I hoped were valuable. I examined the pouch closely, using the knife I had to recover from Emil’s carcass to peel apart the layers, and discovered a hidden pocket in one end. I slipped it open, and a golden disc fell into my hand that almost perfectly matched the man’s tattoo.

“Okay, now that’s definitely a badge or medallion of some sort,” I grinned. “If I can figure out what it means, I’ll have a definite lead on who sent this guy out here – and hopefully, a lead on the person who’s really behind all of this.”