Resurrection magic. The power to bring the dead back to life. If Jake had that… well, he certainly wouldn’t be the barely accepted outsider anymore. Unless it was banned, then they’d probably try to kill him.

The village had lost people lately, hadn’t it? Cara stared, her mouth hanging open. Was she thinking about the fellow hunters they’d lost? If there was a chance to bring them back, surely she’d take it.

Jeremy didn’t react, as calm as if he’d been read a weather report. This wasn’t news to him. “Oral tradition says that the Empire declared it profane necromancy. Almost all mention of it was wiped from existence. Discussing it was forbidden under penalty of death.”

No wonder they’d kept their attempts to explore the ruins a secret. Did they trust him now, or was this desperation? “Alright, so, let’s never tell anyone about this, got it. How do I open it?”

“Apply your blood to the seal.”

Quivers in his chest fluttered and snuck into his voice. “That’ll work?”

Jeremy half shrugged. “Shoot the bow and listen.”

Coming from Jeremy, that was somewhere between worrying and downright scary. “Dagger, please, Cara. The smaller one.”

She passed it to him with a gleam in her eyes. “Here you go.”

Jake’s nose wrinkled. Here he was about to spill his blood onto ancient magic with no idea what would happen, and she was watching like it was prime time. Not that he should have expected otherwise. “Alright then, let’s do this.”

He stood before the door. His chest tightened. Discern Magic again made it crystal clear the seal was bad news. Did he really want to do this? His breathing raced ahead, and he reined it back in.

Steady breathing, steady hand, a clean cut. That was doable. He held the blade above the palm of his hand. Why was it always the palm? His hands were important. Wouldn’t his fingertip, or the bottom of his ear, make more sense?

What the hell, he’d be healing it, anyway. The knife sliced through the skin easily. Pain cried out, a fire that spread and consumed everything it touched while demanding relief. Not yet.

He applied his hand to the door. The blood seeped out and disappeared into the wood. No, Discern Magic revealed, not into the door, but into the seal. The densely interwoven threads and aspects of the seal lit up in a pattern far too complex to track.

“Is it working?” Cara bounced on her tiptoes, watching yet seeing none of the action.

Something was happening, but this was beyond him. Could Jeremy discern more?

Jeremy shook his head. “No. Only part of the puzzle.”

Could it be the same here as on Earth? “Something you have, something you are, something you know.”

Jeremy’s eyebrow shot up. “I didn’t know you were familiar with magical security.”

“I’m not.” Jake smiled. Maybe his computing knowledge wasn’t so useless here after all. “The fundamentals of security don’t change, even if the type of lock used does.” He handed the dagger back with a grateful bow.

Between the pain and not being able to mirror the spell, would he even be able to cast the heal properly? Only one way to find out.

Jeremy grabbed his wrist in a steely grip and beat him to the punch. “No explosions in here.”

Healing magic swirled. A warm tingling filled his hand, and the cut sealed back up. “Thanks.” He stared at where the injury had been. There wasn’t even a trace of damage. Could he craft a long-duration healing spell to precast? That’d be easier than casting with injured hands, or worse. Not here, though, and not now. “That seems to be the ‘something you are’ part checked off, though?”

“Correct.” How could Jeremy be so sure?

“Alright, that leaves something to have, and something to know.”

Jeremy nodded along. “If anywhere, they’ll be in the Divine Empire.”

That was a little too convenient. But if it was planned, then by who? Hopefully, it was just a coincidence. “Sounds like a quest.”

Jeremy stiffened up. “Do you both swear to silence? To share the quest with no one? To keep it a secret until the end of time?”

Given the penalty of death, secrecy sounded pretty good. “I do.”

That left Cara. She fiddled with her fingers, her gaze darting around. “I’ll… do my best?”

Silence. Jeremy swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a moment. “Remember what’s at stake, Cara. I have faith in you.”

Quest received: Restore ancient wood elven magic.

Quest giver: Keeper Laotan Erinbar So’aroaska

Quest description: Powerful magic lost to the Wood Elves is sealed within the ancient ruin east of Tolabar. Breaking the seals requires three parts: being, having, and knowing. Acquire them and unlock the Tree of the Druids to recover its secrets. Multi-part quest.

Quest reward (completion): 50,000 XP, gain access to magical effects Mend, Commune, Grow, Shapechange, and Rebirth

Part 1 description: Discover what one must be to unlock the seals.

Part 1 reward: 5,000 XP

Part 2 description: Discover what one must possess to unlock the seals.

Part 2 reward: 5,000 XP

Part 3 description: Discover what one must know to unlock the seals.

Part 3 reward: 5,000 XP

Part 4 description: Unlock all five seals in the Tree of the Druids.

Part 4 reward: Quest completion

Restore the ancient wood elven magic (part 1) completed.

5,000 XP received!

Level increased 5 → 6!

Sweet, a level up, and all Jake had needed to do was spill his own blood. Spellcasting capability was the order of the day, and not the kind with illusions and telepathy, so raised his Intelligence to 19.

A second quest with the decency to include actual information. “Laotan put you up to this? He seemed curious in the meeting, but… well, I guess politics is another thing that’s the same everywhere.”

Jeremy nodded solemnly. “Sometimes, secrecy is best. It is often unclear how to best help our people.”

Maybe politics wasn’t the same here after all. “Well, that’s their problem. Ours is getting past these doors. Guessing you can’t teleport through them?”

“No. This is an extra-dimensional pocket. Teleportation is impossible here. Same reason we cannot cut through the walls.”

“They aren’t really walls, right?” That was plan B caput, not that it had ever had a chance.

Cara sat down cross-legged on the floor and started carving wood. Despite knowing some magic, lacking Discern Magic severely limited her.

What did they know? What could they use? Jake leaned against the bark wall and stroked his chin. “Toward the end of the Age of Heroes, they shut this place down suddenly. I assume you had Grow for a long time before that, right?”

“Correct. All of those magics had long histories, except for Rebirth.”

“The Great Tree still responds to the tree-song,” Cara interjected, without looking up. “It’s slow, though.”

It almost sounded like an MMORPG event. Introduce a powerful new magic that lets you bypass Death’s bargains. Then lock it away and require three things to open it. If races were factions, it’d fit for the race required to unlock it have to be the same as the current Divine Emperor. “The current Divine Emperor is human, isn’t he?”

“Correct.” Jeremy paused and his speech slowed. “Perhaps that is related. If there was no Divine Emperor for most of that time, that would explain ten thousand years of failure.”

If part one of the quest involved conquering an Empire, how hard would parts two and three be? The seals were unbroken. Presumably, the Heroes had disappeared before they could assemble all three pieces. Resurrection magic, though… That would be a boon, even for Jake.

He stared at the seal, his mind whirring. If this was a simulated world, and it had been some kind of scripted event, it wouldn’t have had to follow all the rules to the letter, but maybe it held to some. He stared closer at the magic of the seal, tracing the lines that held it together.

It was far more complex and powerful than anything any other magic yet, but it wasn’t unfamiliar in the way the Ring of Return or the library books were. “The seal’s a spell. The duration is… long. Really, really, long.”

Given infinite power and a short deadline to seal a door, he would have slapped together what he already had and ramped up the power. If he could isolate the aspects they already knew, it might reveal unknown aspects in the seals. “Do you know a spell that can repair things?”

“I do!” Cara shouted. “I’ve gotten really good at fixing things.” She smiled sheepishly. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“How about a spell for holding something in place?”

“Yes,” Jeremy said, chuckling to himself. “An orc sold it to me as a combat spell. Ineffective, unless you’re fighting a snail.”

“All I need is the aspect.” If this worked, they might come away with some magic after all. “Let’s go outside.”

***

A few minutes later, all three trailed back in. Jake had two new spells in his spell list and had already picked out the new aspects from them.

Lesser Repair (Transmutation, Touch, Repair)

Weak Hold (Force, Projectile, Hold)

“You going to fill us in?” Jeremy asked.

“Only if it works.” He smiled as confidently as he could. “Now, throw some offensive magic at the door.”

“You’re trying to isolate an aspect from the door.” Jeremy shook his head. “It can’t be done.”

“Why not?”

Jeremy frowned. His forehead wrinkled, and for a moment he seemed to come around. Then, in an instant, the uncertainty was gone, replaced by an unwavering smile. “It can’t be done.”

Had something tugged him back into line? Magic? The System Death had mentioned? That a powerful force didn’t want it attempted suggested it would work. Would that power, whoever or whatever it was, mind Heroes doing it, or was Jake merely harder to influence? If so, this might make him a dangerous enemy.

Was he harder to influence? Icy tendrils took root in his gut. How would he even know? An uncomfortable thought, but not one he could do anything about. “You two should step outside in case there are traps.”

Jeremy offered Cara a hand off the floor. “Make it quick. We should leave shortly.”

If any door would be trapped, it would be Rebirth. Better to start small. Jake squared up to the door leading to Growth and deactivated Archeologist’s Sight. He didn’t need any extra distractions.

He drew on his mana and weaved it in Firestarter. “Enkir.”

The spark collided with the door. Nothing happened. Had he misjudged it? Or did it have to be powerful enough to cause damage?

Technically, this wasn’t the Forest. Besides, it wouldn’t catch fire, anyway. He held the Firestarter spell in his mind and amped up the power to the Ignite aspect. He checked and rechecked the spell, determined not to visit Death again quite so soon.

If it went wrong, he wouldn’t hold on. Release it, tank the blast, and hope Jeremy didn’t hear. He chuckled to himself. That passed as a solid plan these days.

Mana eagerly answered his call. He formed the spell. It held together, complete and ready to cast. “Enkirtara!”

The firebolt slammed into the seal and dissipated into it. Power rippled through it, a symphony of magic taking the fire and adding it to the seal’s strength. An absorption aspect? That would make it worth the trip.

He repeated the experiment. Every cast afforded new insights into the absorption effect. The Repair and Hold aspects both lit up as well; he eliminated those from his analysis. He wouldn’t have stood a chance at isolating absorption without knowing those aspects.

Fire magic skill increased 1 → 2!

He was so close he could taste it. It wasn’t so far off reading code. Really intricate, interconnected code without any comments, but at least it wasn’t full of goto statements.

A few more casts later, and the Absorb aspect solidified in his mind.

For discerning a rare spell aspect from an active spell, you are awarded the trait Insights to Aspects. One additional aspect is ignored when determining cohesion penalty while crafting spells.

Perception skill increased 3 → 4!

Nice. Jake mentally probed his new trait, confirming that it would stack with Cohesion. When it came to crafting more complex spells, that would be very useful.

He leveled Discern Magic again. The wood elven magic lining the walls jumped into even greater detail. Marvelous, incredible detail. “I’ll be back.”

The magic tingled again as he left. Was it warping space, disintegrating and reassembling him, or something else entirely? Outside, Cara hummed while carving wood, oblivious to the world.

Jeremy stood watch with his bow drawn. “All ready?”

Phrased as a question or not, Jake knew the expected answer. “Yeah. We can go now.”

Cara looked up from her carving, which more and more closely resembled Nibbles. “Get anything good?”

A tug pulled at Jake’s heart. It was a shame that the darling little creature couldn’t come along, but it was for the best. “The Absorb aspect. Thinking it might help make Spellcrafting safer, and give us the edge on any casters we have to fight.”

That earned a warm smile from even Jeremy. “Teach me before you go. We’re fast-tracking casters. Anything that can help? We need it. Anyone asks, you learned it from a dungeon spawn mage.”

“Understood.” He didn’t need a reminder of just how dangerous magic could be. “I’ll level Protection as much as I can before we have to part ways.”

“Thank you.” Jeremy bowed his head. “Let’s move.”