Maya glanced at her luck bonus from completing her quest, bringing her total up to +46, and grinned. "Oh, yeah! That’s good enough to do some magic research, I believe. Or maybe I should do more crafting, there's a good chance I could make some better armor than I did before. Or get lucky with the supply creation." She grimaced at the thought of how much work remained to get the Oracle's temple up and running. "Or maybe we should focus on leveling while I have such a big experience boost."

She looked around, but Hunter wasn’t sitting beside her. Oh, right, she’d given him leave to explore the city. "Hunter!"

Hunter came bounding back a moment later, tail flapping, and promptly slobbered all over her hand as she tried to pet him.

"Okay, good boy, down."

He lay down obediently, dust clouds puffing with every smack of his tail against the sandy ground.

"Do you ever stop with the tail?" Maya asked. "I swear, that thing could power a generator."

Hunter only thumped it harder, sending even larger dust clouds, until Maya ordered him to heel again.

"I think we’re going to start with magic, and then we’ll see." She lingered a moment, looking over the crafting stations, tempted… but she could craft any time. Magic, she could only really work on when her luck was very high. Even if it meant cutting down on her profits, this was what she wanted most.

They headed to her basement workshop, beneath the Nirsym magic shop she’d rented to store her surplus magic from the Domitius heist. The terrariums sat where she’d left them, one entirely full, one a little over half, one almost empty but for a few drops clinging to the plants, her notes stacked neatly beside them. She flipped through, reacquainting herself with the theory of them, and it all came back to her quickly.

Hunter stuck his nose into the nearly empty terrarium, licking the magic off the plants with a confused expression, and Maya smacked him away. "Don’t eat that! It’s bad for you."

Hunter sat down immediately, staring at her sadly, and she sighed. "Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you. Just, stay out of the magic, okay?"

He stared at her.

"Okay. Can you go over there and wait? I have a lot of work to do and only a few hours to do it in."

Hunter obediently relocated to the corner and lay down, watching as she spread out her pages and materials.

Maya started with casting Magestrike in an attempt to replicate its area-effect. But her earlier observations about the increasing complexity of the spells held true, and she made very little progress on that front.

After writing a brief overview of her observations, such as they were, she switched to Heart of Magma. As her primary damage-dealing spell of choice at the moment, she wanted to see what made it tick and if she could improve it. She could probably increase its speed by hand-casting, but wasn't sure if it would be worth the expenditure. Heart of Magma would require a huge fraction of her magic for each casting, and even knowing the spell gave no guarantee that she'd then be able to cast it perfectly enough not to fail and waste the magic. And now that Domitius's prison had been destroyed, she had no guarantee of ever finding magic in this quantity again.

Storm Grasp was another spell she hadn't put much time into yet. Storm Grasp was a lightning-based paralysis spell with the chaining effect, that could immobilize the target as well as anyone within reach of them. But it was a sustained spell, which meant the caster would be as helpless as her victims while holding the spell, which was the main reason Maya hadn't used it much. She couldn't cast it very well here, since she had no target, but she could examine the spell casting requirements.

It proved to be a whole level of complexity higher than Magestrike, proving it deserved its position in the highest tier of game-standard spells.

"I think I need more than 50 luck to tackle these ones," Maya finally admitted, after an hour and a half of making minimal if any progress. "I think it's time to go ask the mages at the academy for their notes. That should speed things up a bit."

Hunter got to his feet to follow as she reorganized her notes and headed back up to the ground level. She needed something between the basic spells she'd already mastered and the difficult ones the next tier up. She didn't feel confident enough to try correcting anyone else's work today either, though she could make some excuse to Runescale if she saw him.

Then she grinned. She was a trickster, after all. Why shouldn't she play a little joke on her least favourite fan?

She returned to her notes on Magestrike and Storm Grasp, comparing them to Flame Hand, which provided a basic heat shield on the user. She was pretty sure if she inverted the somatic components of Storm Grasp, she could combine it with Flame Hand's trigger to instigate a sudden lightning strike on the caster.

It wouldn't do much good, but if she could get Runescale to zap himself while trying to show off, she'd call it a good day's work.

"That's not a stupidly petty use of my time, right Hunter?"

She grinned and got to work, hastily cross-referencing the spells with each other. Combining them in this manner wouldn't be easy, and she only had a few hours left. Probably not enough time to get spells from anyone at the academy, if any of them were around at this time of night. Her best bet would be to go around dinnertime, when most mages came to socialize.

Besides, there was something intensely satisfying about creating an entirely useless custom spell just to humble someone who thought too highly of himself.

She spent the next two hours writing furiously, drawing diagrams, measuring angles, practicing hand motions and arm gestures, and ensuring everything fit together smoothly. Using the more basic spell as the targeting base made everything so much easier. Which did make her wonder if she should try to make a Storm Breath spell based on Wind Whisper with Lightning components, but she was already too completely absorbed in her current project. She threw together a quick sketch of the potential lightning breath and tossed it aside for later, then resumed work on her Runestrike spell.

Then for testing. It would be no good to give out a non-functional spell. Anyone could make up a fake spell. There was no fun in that.

She gathered a handful of magic, waved her arms in a careful arc, then clapped twice in quick succession before throwing the magic upwards. It didn't disengage from her hands, but ignited into a crackling ball of lightning. With a sudden pulse, it jolted through her and left her standing stunned for three seconds, a -5 health message hovering in her vision.

"Yes! Runestrike is a go!" She saved the spell, then wrote out an elegant and entirely clear set of instructions for it. She wrote RUNESTRIKE across the top, then drew a stick figure of a lizardine holding a stylized lightning bolt in one upraised hand.

She cackled far too gleefully, but her spell was finished and she still had another twenty minutes of luck left. She organized her notes again, neatly rolled up the Runestrike scroll and tied it with a scrap of hide, ordered Hunter to wait for her to return, then hurried back to the leypillar. She arrived at the mage academy just as Runescale was walking toward his lodging unit, and the moment he saw her he came running over.

"Did you have a chance to work on any of my ideas yet?" he asked eagerly.

"Why yes, I did, in fact. I have the finished spell right here. Just for you." She passed him the scroll.

Runescale accepted it with an expression of utter awe. "Oh, really? Wow, I knew you were awesome, but you're really awesome! Is this why you were away all month, working on this to surprise me?"

Maya grinned. "Sure, we can go with that if it makes you happy. It's still a prototype, so I'm not sure how useful it'll be in combat, but it works and it should definitely be cool looking."

Runescale grinned like the proverbial dinosaur about to swallow a dodo. "Awesome. You glass, Stader! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!"

And he ran off, scroll clutched in his hand like a precious artifact.

Maya watched him go, torn between following him to watch or just continuing her original plan of talking to the mage group heads. She poked in her head to the dining hall - dark and empty - and the study rooms - no leaders in sight - before returning to the lawn. Runescale had taken up residence behind the dining hall building, standing with a lantern at his feet, the scroll spread out before him as he carefully practiced the arm and hand motions. Maya found a convenient tree to lean against and watch the show.

Part of her felt a little bad, but most of her thought this was going to be absolutely hilarious and she couldn't think of a better person to try out her greatest creation to date.

He really had asked for it.

Runescale practiced the movements slowly checking himself against the scroll every few seconds, until he could do them smoothly. More smoothly than Maya herself, actually. Then he continued, moving faster and faster, shaving off microseconds with each iteration until he could do them perfectly in under a second.

Only then did he lean down and reverently collect a handful of magic from a hidden compartment in his lantern's base. He distributed it evenly between his hands as instructed, stood breathing for several seconds like a martial artist focusing, then moved smoothly and quickly through the movements.

It happened almost faster than Maya could catch. One moment he was standing, ready to cast, the next the area exploded with lightning. Purple and white exaggerated electricity flowed around Runescale and out in a spherical wave from his clapped hands, enveloping him completely.

He stood stunned, paralyzed for almost five seconds, then burst into laughter. "It worked! It worked it worked it worked!" he shouted, dancing around and cackling madly. Maya grinned, nonplussed by his reaction, but enjoying his happiness nonetheless. "I AM RUNESCALE!" he shouted, then to Maya's consternation cast the spell again immediately, electrocuting and immobilizing himself before resuming his mad prancing and laughter. "Muahahahaha!"

Maya shook her head, pleased that her spell had worked and a bit relieved that Runescale had taken it so well.

"Fear me, all who dare to approach! I am LIGHTNING GOD!"

Maya, shaking with silent laughter, turned and left Runescale to his celebration. May he enjoy it. Hopefully this would keep him happy for a few months and out of her feathers.

For now, she had bare moments until midnight and wanted to be somewhere safe before her luck dove again. She headed up to her own room, Runescale’s mad gleeful cackles still echoing across the academy, and smiled.

So, maybe he hadn’t been humbled after all, but it was still hilarious. She wasn’t even sure which was funnier - if he’d been upset and only done it once, or if he kept doing it on purpose even after he learned it would only strike him.

Once safely in her room, Maya saved the game first thing, then did some inventory management while she waited for it to be safe to roll without accruing a worse penalty. She had accumulated a lot of random junk, and hadn't swapped out her armor since her encounter with the Path of Life faction. She spent some time comparing stats, particularly on the items she'd crafted. They were often better than the monster drops or store-purchased goods.

She had the Agility armor, and didn't want to swap it out for anything. She liked being able to move at normal player speeds. But it also meant that any other items that added agility were basically useless, since the Unique armor set her total to 100, overwriting any other bonuses from other equipment.

By the time her luck penalty expired, she'd settled on her new setup. It didn't change very much, she still wanted to focus on Sturdiness for health and really anything else was rather inefficient with her current build. Momentum would be the next big one, since putting everything into health would leave her unable to increase her speed as she leveled, and she knew from experience how huge of an advantage being able to move faster than her opponents would be.

So, completely contrary to anything a mage might choose in ordinary circumstances, she focused entirely on sturdiness and momentum equipment whenever possible. Then, as an afterthought, she kept a set of anything with high control stats, because she might end up underwater at some point, and control dictated how long she could hold her breath in-game.

The rest, she dumped into her wardrobe for storage. She hadn't decided what to do with her day, but it wouldn't be crafting. Probably fighting. She needed to level herself, and Hunter, as fast as possible.

But first… Maya rolled her die.

-5

Normally, she’d be inclined to reroll in hopes of getting something better, but Xaneta’s warnings were recent enough that they still echoed in Maya’s mind. Lucy’s definition of a good roll as anything above -20 seemed like a good rule to stick with until proven otherwise. It was one thing to disregard advice from Hara, a low level Domitian, but Lucy was even higher level than Sevard. Her advice, Maya would take to heart.

New Mission: Trickster Day 19. Cause significant damage to the last building in which you slept.

Maya frowned. That was a very strange quest. Damage her apartment building? Was that even possible?

Well, it was a quest, so it must be. But she'd never tried to destroy a building before. Not that she'd actually destroy this one, she still planned to live there until she could get a house of her own.

She headed that way anyway, since it seemed a relatively innocuous quest, then stopped. Her luck bonus from the previous night hadn't expired at midnight - sometimes it lasted until midnight, sometimes it remained 24 hours, and she couldn't figure out what determined which it would be. So she was already sitting at +10, and could stay there comfortably all day. Having a minorly good day would be a perfect time to do some leveling. And she didn't think the bonus would stack, so it would be best to wait until the bonus from the day before wore off before claiming today's, in case it would last into tomorrow as well.

She decided to return to Nirsym instead, collect Hunter, then grind some more levels in Zone Two. She still had a decent amount of money left, not enough to do anything extravagant, but enough to hire an NPC companion if she wanted. She didn't think she should keep using Lucy as a private guard, it seemed a bit of an imposition no matter how much she insisted she owed Sevard.

Hunter had gained two levels from their exploits in the forest, but level 6 was still a bit low to be in zone two. Remaining in Kalyx would be of minimal benefit, she knew she'd be gaining almost no experience here since she outleveled the region so completely. Now that she actually could earn experience again with her luck back to something reasonable, she should take advantage of that fact. Who knew how good or bad tomorrow's luck would be.