Technically, ‘the Arcana’ didn’t have an actual Arcana, which would’ve taken up the entire street, but rather a smaller, far weaker variant. The portable aether trawler was kept inside the navy blue, celestially-sequinned tent behind the stall. A holdover from the days when it served as part of a travelling circus just like it’s name, so said its owner. That was also the reason Mr Adamite refused to let anyone see inside it, or explain how it worked. You asked him for basic, non-crafted items, and the magic ‘thingy’ took some aether and made it so. His love of mystique was a quirk I’d had trouble humouring when I was young.

I’d gotten over the desire to see it for the most part, if only by figuring it out through my own research. My ten year old self had assumed it would involve spectacular, lightning-like arcs of aether, but it was almost a far more discreet affair. That was what led me to accept that it wasn’t worth the effort.

Unfortunately, without being present, it was hard to say how long it would take, or how much progress had been made. The uncertainty grated more than the delay.

Eventually, preceded by a yell of “Done!”, the squat proprietor emerged from the tent with an almost comically large heap of reagents piled haphazardly over his outstretched arms, so tall that it hid both his face and tophat.

“S’all here, me boy!” he exclaimed, ambling towards the stall with a stuttering, stumbling gait. Without even thinking about it, I stood up and I went to help him with the load.

The precariously balanced tower shuddered as he missed his footing.

The pile began to topple forward.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Even as I started running, I knew I wasn’t fast enough. Not when I’d been caught so flat-footed.

It was all going to come crashing down while I was still out of reach.

My hands reached out, hoping that even if I couldn’t stop it, I could at least catch it.

Comeoncomeoncomeon—

Then—

Then Mr Adamite steadied himself and the tower with an exaggerated show of relief and, barely missing a beat, deftly pulled the pile out of my reach.

“Uh-uh-uh,” he tutted, as he scooched past my grasping hands, “Hands don’t touch the merchandise until we work out the terms.”

Though I grumbled, it was undercut by the grin I couldn’t quite keep down. With the benefit of a couple seconds of hindsight, it was obvious that, if he wasn’t putting on a bit, he’d have just stuffed it all in his inventory.

“Alright, what’s the damage?” I asked, still trying to force disapproval into my voice as he put a hand to his chin and pantomimed concentration.

“Mmm, let me think, fifty circlets each for the...yes, carry the two…All the usual stuff for your dad’s shop can go on your tab and you can pay me for the rest by telling me what it’s for,” he concluded with a satisfied nod.

I levelled a suspicious look at him.

“You don’t keep tabs, sir.”

“An astute observation, Leo!”

I waited for him to address the contradiction, but Mr Adamite just continued to beam at me without a drop of shame.

“Mr Adamite, I can’t just accept that sort of charity—”

“Charity?! Preposterous! I should say I am still yet to pay back the debt I owe you for dethroning our esteemed former despot.”

I hesitated, as I turned the thought around in my head. The idea that I was owed anything for saving my own hide, first and foremost...Accepting anything for that made me physically uncomfortable.

“Sir, that—Nobody owes me anything for doing my best to save myself…”

“Leo, once I figured out what those Imp’s Spades were for, I was kicking myself for not giving them—Nay, for not paying you for what you were about to do. There must’ve been a hundred different ways that you could have run away from the problem—” I guess, if I didn’t need to worry about him chasing me down for it, “That you were chiefly concerned with saving your own life doesn’t diminish the fact that what you did was brilliant and courageous and heroic, and a grand service to everyone who lived in the shadow of our pettiest of tyrants,” he declared, before lowering his voice and adopting an uncharacteristically serious tone, “And don’t let anyone tell you what you did was anything else.”

For a moment, the pendulum swung the other way and I wondered how anyone could possibly begrudge me for saving myself, before I remembered what I heard from my father.

“Mmm, it’s not like I’ve ever taken anything Mrs Eleanor said seriously,” I said with a weak, forced smile.

“The shrew’s the least of anyone’s—Pretend I didn’t saything, just me being set in my ways, ” he said, clearly not willing to explain himself further, “Now, my price. What were you going to use all this for.”

“Potions.”

“Hardy har har, ask a stupid question, I guess,” he scoffed, “For what ultimate end do you intend those potions for, mmm?”

I could’ve continued to be facetious. It was very tempting.

“We’re...the four remaining kids, we’re going to become adventurers,” I admitted, “I think that’s the conclusion we’re all approaching, even if we haven’t said it out loud, and I want to have as many things on hand as I can.”.

He nodded with understanding, “I guess you’re a step ahead of the other then, given the training you must’ve gotten with—”

“No.”

The denial had come unbidden, with a vehemence that I myself was surprised by. It was enough to give even Mr Adamite pause.

“Mmm?”

With a few moments to center myself, the kneejerk contempt I felt for that particular idea was pinned down in words.

“I have no intention of making use of any of the skills or the weapon I was forced to wield,” I ground out, my words laced with disdain. That earned me a concerned look.

“I know it must’ve been awful, but you can’t just tar an entire weapon class—”

“I despise the weapon separately from the man who forced it upon me, thank you very much,” I declared, “I find it actively repulsive to wield.”

“So what do you intend to fight with, mmm?” he asked “Bombs?”

Really, I hadn’t thought about it. In an offhand, unthinking sort of way, I’d thought of myself as something like a supporting element, giving out potions and maybe throwing the occasional status grenade. Futilely, I hoped the non-committal noise I made sounded adequately answer-like.

“Surely, you can’t be happy with that alone. If you aren’t going to use the fish knife, you’ll need to find yourself—ah, hang on a minute!”

Mr Adamite ducked down beneath his stall and pulled out an old chest. Within it, there were

“Look, it’s fine, sir, I don’t really think I’d be of much use in a fight anyway. I don’t really have anything that screams ‘fighter’.”

“Leo, my boy, don’t sell yourself so short!” he called back without looking up, “Every guard and travelling hunter I’ve ever met have agreed; natural stats barely matter.”

I didn’t have an answer to that, so I stood their in awkward silence as he continued to rummage, until he finally found the object of his search.

“Ah, here it is,” he declared, as he tried to pry something free from the bottom of the chest, “Y’know, I—ngh—used to be the ringmaster of—”

“No you weren’t,” I countered, “You ran a side tent. As you’ve recounted many, many times before.”

“Bah, whatever happened to the gullible little boy who couldn’t remember the story I’d told him a week ago. No, I wasn’t the Ringmaster, but—Ha,” he shouted, as he jostled it free. ‘It’ was a long, thin rod covered in black lacquer, ending with a tiny cap of brass.

My eyes widened as I beheld the Wand.

“—The rubes didn’t know that. I had the ringmaster look,” he explained. With his curled moustache and garish clothes, he still looked the part, “The only other thing they needed to see was the magic stick, and they’d believe just about anything I said.”

He twirled it in his fingers, before offering it to me. Out of habit, I reached out to take it, before realising and hesitating.

“I can’t possibly accept—”

“Of course you can, boy,” he declared, voice steady and unyielding, “It might just be a pretty light-maker in my hands, but it’s still a proper weapon. It’s meant to be used. For me, it barely has sentimental value. If you’ve a mind for it—and I think you do—it’ll be a good stepping stone, at the least. Just try to remember old Mr Adamite when you end up getting a statue in the Raided City, mmm?”

I chuckled, then nodded. Taking the wand in hand, I was accosted by a series of text boxes that completely blocked my vision. Though I knew the gist of what each said, I read through them anyway, just in case.

You obtained a Ringmaster’s Baton Wand [LvL 1]

Mag. Attack +4

Mag. Defence +1

Description: Roll up! Roll up!

Tutorial: Glyphwork

Glyphwork is a common form of combat magic, primarily used by those that wield Wands, Staves and Tomes, but also frequently dabbled in by non-specialists. By combining a series of arcane letters in sequence, the eponymous Glyphs, the caster can construct spell-words, which are then catalysed to create a spell.

Unlike Runes, there is no innate meaning to a series of Glyphs. Two casters may recite identical spell-words and produce completely different spells. The spells assigned to each spell-word are dependent on the caster, with higher level spells requiring more Glyphs, and an adventurer may be required to re-define the meanings of different spell-words as their spellbooks grow, and the spells that are most important to them change.

As a system, Glyphwork allows the user to easily breakdown and understand the elements of their own spellcasting, with cast time and cost dependent on the number of glyphs used, with the former increasing arithmetically and the latter increasing exponentially. As a spell can only be catalysed as part of adding a Glyph, circumventing these restrictions can also be cumbersome. While these aspects can often be used to theoretically ‘cheat’ on cost and cast time, the requirement of one Glyph per spell-level will often mean losing out on both for higher level spells, not to mention that the system requires serious adjustments to account for spells with variable effects.

Glyphwork is considered an easy, low-ceiling style of casting that begins to struggle in the face of complicated spells and is usually discarded by higher level adventurers in favour of either Hardcasting, or its more sophisticated sibling, Runework.

Known Glyphs: ☿ 🜔 🜍 Chaincast [Weapon] [Wand] [Iconic]

Effect: Alters effects of magical systems.

[Glyphwork] Glyphs are not consumed upon casting a spell. When casting a spell, any completed word in the current series of glyphs can be used, as long as it includes the last incanted Glyph.

I'd always known that, if were ever to learn magic, I'd start with Glyphwork. It was the only form I'd understood when reading. Hardcasting, geomancy, elementalism, none of them made any sense on a logical level. Maybe that's why Glyphwork was so popular.

🜔 🜔 ☿

A shower of particles and bodiless sparks erupted from the wand as I tested it out for the first time. Without a spell to go with it, the glyphs simply fizzled into the aether, but I still couldn't help but grin. Just as its former owner had, I twirled the wand through my fingers. It was a movement that just felt natural in a way the Katana didn't. Assembling glyphs felt almost like working out chemical equations in my head. Just having picked up the wand, I couldn't help but flash a dumb, goofy grin.

Before I had a chance to forget, I turned to thank Mr Adamite for charity I had no way to repay him for.

“Thanks again, Mr Adami—”

“Bah, get going,” he harrumphed as he waved me off, though his grin made sure it was clear he wasn't serious, “You have a weapon to feel out, and I have a man to go see about a horse.”