Bookworld Online: Marsh Man

Bokuboy

Last minute notice: There might not be a chapter tomorrow or the next day, depending on the circumstances.

I found the protection wards a few pages after I started reading. Apparently, it was one of the most basic enchantments, only surpassed in easiness by the 'well feeling' enchantments of the previous pages. The basic protection enchantment was nowhere near as complicated as the protection ward that I normally used, and it also listed the runes and components.

It was neat being able to actually read the descriptions of the magic channels and things without having to guess what it was and reproducing it, in the faint hope that it worked. It made me realize that all my previous hard work had been as close to right as it could have been, with my only lacking knowledge being the runes themselves.

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Understanding of Enchantments has increased from 96% to 100%. You no longer wonder why things are the way they are. Your knowledge alone tells you how things work.

Chance of learning new enchantments and reproducing them with a glance: 65% - 85%

Chance of learning new enchantments and reproducing them after studying briefly: 90% - 100%

(Chance numbers increase with more Rune knowledge learned)

New spell learned: Detect Enchantment. This spell lets you find and examine an enchantment within your area of effect (vigilance technique). Must focus for at least three seconds to be effective. The longer the time spent, the more knowledge gained. Does not reveal rune details until more Rune knowledge is gained.

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I blinked my eyes as the enchantment diagram seemed to jump off of the page. My mind wrapped around it and I could see it as an actual carving with all the proper grooves in the wood. I flipped the page and the same thing happened to that enchantment diagram. I looked at the next page and that was the normal version of my own enchantment.

I saw all the places it lacked, where I had added in the runes for different effects, mainly making the creatures uncomfortable and repelling them from the area. If they were too close, it actually caused them pain before repelling them. I hadn't realized how all encompassing my modified one was and how versatile it could be.

I just had to figure out how to change it for Greta.

I went through the rest of the examples and my mind expanded as I saw the basic enchantments for dozens of things with four to six variants each. I found the fire suppression enchantment and it did have a water producing rune as well as an air rune and a push rune, which was very similar to the repelling rune.

I can definitely use that. I thought and wrote it down, as well as drawing out the way it was attached to the fire enchantment. It would need to keep similar components if I folded it into the protection enchantment, just to ensure it worked.

I kept reading and there were enchantments for a lot of things. There were enchantments for cooking pans to produce heat without a fire and cooling enchantments to counter it if needed. It had trap wards that produced ghostly chains to bind an animal when hunting for an easy kill, a proximity ward that produces a loud sound when crossed, and one that creates a magical arrow that shoots a signal flare.

There were several others that were surprising, like the element wall enchantment. When activated, it produced a wall made of the element rune you engraved it with. It was only a short activation, barely thirty seconds; but, thirty seconds of having an earth or stone wall between you and a rampaging creature, was thirty seconds longer to live.

The concealment enchantments were neat, too. You could hide anything from a window and trap door to an entire normal door and no one would know that whatever you hid even existed. It would definitely be useful if you were hiding out or wanted to hide something like a personal vault.

Right after that one was the blocking enchantment. It blocked itself from being detected with spells or other enchantments. The best thing about it, was that the components were easily modified, just like the sword enchantment I had changed for the Montgomery family. It wouldn't take much to fold it into every other enchantment, except for the initial infusion. It would take nearly twice as much magic to complete and that wasn't as high of a price as I expected.

The weapon enchantments were next and they were the basic of basic, even simpler than the one Black Montgomery was teaching in class. In fact, if I was careful enough, I would need even smaller tools to carve it. The simplicity would allow me to carve it into the base of a dagger, which was barely an inch across, or a fourth the size of the small enchantments I used for the kracken tubes.

Of course, there were more runes that could be substituted for the weapons, besides damage, sharpness, toughness, and durability. Unfortunately, it was a list and not the runes themselves, then it said to check the rune book by A.Kimmel.

I hope that's one of the books back home in my stash. I thought and saw the three books I had left there in my head. The funny thing was, I couldn't 'see' the titles of the books to read them.

I chuckled and flipped back to the basic protection enchantments and took my time as I went through them. Once I had spent a bit of time actually studying them, I found a very specific rune that was almost hidden in the fourth variant. It was a very significant find, because it was the rune that was going to help me significantly. It was the 'man' rune.

I almost laughed as I pulled some papers over and started to copy down the basic protection ward and changed the creature rune into the man rune. It was a complete enchantment like that; but, I wasn't one to half-ass anything, so I drew out my full protection ward and started to combine the two.

It was a time consuming process, considering the normal protection rune was meant for a wide area. I wasn't daunted by that, though. I could work for hours on end without a break and I did so this time. I had all night to figure things out in order to get it to work for what I wanted it to do, so that's what I did.

By the time morning rolled around and the crack of dawn showed through my window, I had not one but three enchantments ready for carving. I had to admit that it was some of my best work as I admired them. I would be able to get by with my normal smaller tools for now, as long as I kept the size to the four inch wide circle restriction. I would have to wait until this afternoon to carve them, though.

I packed everything away and went to my bedroom to see Hope sprawled across my bed and her arms spread out, as if she was a spider waiting for a fly to land anywhere on her web. I put the book and papers into the vault and went to the bathroom. I considered waking Sara and Tabitha, then decided that I would let them 'find' me in the tub to watch their reactions.

I stripped off and climbed in to rest and relax for nearly half an hour before Hope woke up. She dressed in her maid uniform and looked into the bathroom, saw me in the tub, and laughed.

“They are either going to scream in anger or delight.” Hope warned me and left to go get them.

I heard two loud yells and running feet, then I had to clamp my mouth shut to stop my laugh at two maids as they made indignant faces at me, as if I had wronged them.

“My lord! You need to wake us!” Sara exclaimed.

“It was early and...” I started to say.

“You can bother us, even if it's the middle of the night!” Tabitha said, adamantly. “We will always... always... be here to help you, my lord.”

“I didn't want to bother...” I started again.

“It's our job, my lord.” Sara interrupted and nodded at Tabitha to get her to start working. “Day or night, awake or asleep, alone or together.” She said and knelt to help wash me. “The king himself complimented our work ethic, so you can't tell us that we can't do our jobs when we so desperately want to.”

I reached up and cupped the side of her face. “I would never tell you not to.”

Sara blushed a little. “Thank you, my lord.”

I let her face go and cupped Tabitha's face next. “I only wanted to see your reactions when you caught me in the tub.”

Tabitha blushed a little as well and then smiled. “We can tell that you didn't wash.”

“I've just been soaking here and waiting for you.” I said and let her face go, then both maids got to work.

It was both a thorough bath and a calm one, with the maids enjoying the gentle scrubbing and with me letting them do whatever they wanted, letting my body be moved around like a posing mannequin. That reaction had been the perfect thing for their moods, because they had happy faces the entire time as they worked.

I was stood up when I was clean and both maids took a turn doing the ritual. They were quite into it and showed me with their eyes and their motions how sincere they were. They maintained eye contact, even when I finished, and then lightly scrubbed me there to clean up the residue.

I was dried off, led into the bedroom, and dressed in my academy uniform. I looked impeccable, especially with the ceremonial sword on my hip. I thanked them both for the excellent job they did and we went downstairs to eat breakfast.

Hope handed me my things for the enchanting class and I left to go and meet Vanessa. She looked happy and I assumed the escort position to lead her into the school and to the right classroom. Both teachers gave me warm smiles when they saw me and I nodded in return.

“I've got a box full of hand carved wildwood daggers for everyone to practice with during the next class this morning.” Mage Black Montgomery said after the bell rang. “For this class, we're working on just a normal piece of wood.”

“I can't do it right.” One of the young women said and a few others nodded their heads. “I can't get the curves right on the rune, let alone making the outside of the enchantment.”

Mage Heather Montgomery stood. “It's all right. You don't have to worry about it.”

“But, we have to pass this class.” The student responded, dejected.

Heather laughed softly. “These exercises are only to test your propensity for the craft. We won't make you rely solely on redrawing the rune or even the enchantment by hand each and every time.”

“You don't?” The young woman asked, surprised.

“Of course not. Unlike some of the other subjects, I doubt five of you in this whole class of twenty students are even interested in the subject.” She looked over at me. “Maybe one or two of you will actually continue on to complete the course without dropping it at the first of the term, where everyone has the option to do so.”

“Oh, that's a relief.” One of the other girls said. “I hate using those tools.”

“Me, too. My hand cramps after ten minutes while trying to hold them.” The girl next to her said.

“If you can't manage to redraw the enchantment onto the spare pieces of wood to try carving, I'll come around and stamp the wood for you.” Black said and took out something that looked like a cattle branding iron. “I had one of the blacksmiths make this up for me.”

Nearly the whole class made appreciative sounds when he pushed magic into it and the end glowed red as it heated up. He turned and took the piece of wood that his wife handed to him and he lightly touched the wood in several places. When he deactivated the branding iron and showed us the wood, it had three perfect representations of the enchantment on the wood.

“I'll do the same to the daggers if you need me to.” Black said and everyone nodded. He gave the board to the girl that spoke first and she thanked him.

Heather gave Vanessa a board and a wooden dagger, neither marked, and passed me a dagger, too. “Just the normal enchantment with the one rune, please.”

“Can you wait for a minute?” I asked and she nodded. I took out my tools and quickly carved out the basic structure, then changed tools and went back to add in the right grooves, depressions, and magic reservoir. I used my potion and the tool to spread it, used the warm spell to dry it instantly, and infused it to make it glow. I handed her the completed dagger and Heather stared at the thing like it was a real weapon.

“Yes, you definitely don't need to stay for the rest of the class.” Heather whispered and took the wooden dagger to her desk.

“Are you leaving?” Vanessa asked in a whisper.

“No, you still need my help.” I whispered back and nodded at the wood as I slid my tools over to her. “Draw the enchantment three times and do what I just did to carve them out. Once that's done, you can try the dagger.”

“Okay.” Vanessa whispered and got to work.

When she turned around, Heather looked a little surprised that I hadn't left. She didn't comment on it, though. The rest of the morning class seemed to pass by in mere moments and Vanessa was extremely happy that she had completed the dagger and managed to infuse it, even without my potion to act as a focus for the enchantment.

“Very good.” Black said and accepted the wooden dagger from her. “Watch.” He said and flipped it over in his hand, poured a bit of magic into it to activate it, then threw it at a target across the room. The dagger thumped into the soft wood target and stuck there. “Heather?”

Heather walked over to the target and looked at the dagger. “Almost an inch and a half.”

“Nice! That's almost a thirty percent damage increase.” Black said, quite pleased as he turned back to look at a surprised Vanessa. “Well done.”

“Thank you.” Vanessa whispered and didn't blush. She waited for the teacher to look away and turned to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Black went around to everyone's desks and made sure they finished the enchantments, then he threw each dagger at the large target. Heather kept calling out the depths and he would praise them all, even if they only managed a five percent damage increase. All of them were happy when the bell rang and quickly packed their things up before leaving. They chatted about how great the lesson was as they left.

Once they were gone, Heather handed Black my dagger. He walked over to me and winked, then he charged the dagger before he whipped it at the target. It made a solid thump sound as the handle guard hit the target, because the wooden blade has slid right through without any resistance.

“Heather?” Black asked with a grin.

“One hundred percent.” Heather responded. “That's not really a fully accurate measurement, either.”

Black chuckled. “I think it's about 110 to 120 percent, myself. It took a bit more magic than all of the others to charge; but, I would expect nothing less from David.”

Vanessa stared at me. “That... that's more than double damage!”

“If you use my potion, yours would jump to 65% or maybe even 70%.” I said with a shrug and stood. “I'll walk you to lunch before I head to my dorm.”

Vanessa nodded and we left class. I dropped her off and went to my dorm to eat and got to work. I had enchantments to carve and test, then I had to meet Greta and Victoria at the botany workshop. We had an appointment at the Mages Guild and they weren't going to know what hit them.