BECMI Chapter 23 – Working the Runes

Princess Brittabelle had risen to her feet during my explanation, staring sadly at the casket there, belatedly recognizing the Cloak folded over it. She held out her hand, and the spellbook there rose off it and came quickly to her grasp. She sighed when she recognized it, and slowly opened it up and turned through the pages, nodding as she recognized the spells within, and certainly the calligraphy.

“This is indeed her spellbook, and her Cloak?” She turned her head to the captain, who simply nodded. “Then she has been returned to us. We did not know how she vanished, but she was en route to Sidheduiche when she went missing. She and her companions, slain by a red dragon, it seems…”

She was silent for a long moment, obviously remembering a student that was probably more like a younger sister than an apprentice, but collected herself after a moment of brief contemplation.

“Let it not be said that Erendyl is ungrateful for those who return our own to us.” She considered me at length. “I wonder how to reward you, young lady. You have even returned her Cloak and spellbook to us, so it seems you are not lacking in magic.” She had likely also seen my Staff was magical, if not much else, courtesy of my “Is there something you think would be suitable for the honor you’ve shown one of our own?”

“Normally, Your Highness, I would have simply returned her to your captain at the gate and been off on my own preoccupations. However, I find myself at a crossroads, and I would be a fool not to at least attempt to take advantage of this chance to leave such a place.”

“You have some favor in mind?” she asked archly, voice gentle but still telling me not to be greedy.

“First of all, I would like an introduction to the Great School of Magic in Zanzyr City. I understand that a Prince’s introduction will cut through all obstacles, and I will be entirely unlikely to get such a thing from my father, and my mother’s clan has no influence there, not that they would wield it on my behalf, either.” Ah, truer words.

“I believe everyone here can tell that you are adept and poised beyond your years, young Lady Edgina,” Princess Brittabelle nodded slowly, assessing me. “A letter of introduction is a minor matter for the honor you’ve shown us.”

Yes! The reputation of the School had even impressed mother, and given her low opinion of surface worlders, that was saying something. I was so going to abuse their library! “The other matter naturally pertains to the Runework found in the back of your student’s spellbook there.”

I marked the coolness in her eyes instantly. “Oh?” was all she said.

“The Runes are Wood, Sand, Water, Stone, Crystal, Silver, Gold, and Bone, and Fox, Eagle, Mouse, and Wolf.” As I spoke them, crimson strands drew Runes of black ink into the air around me without me moving a muscle, etching these Truths of the World into existence and limning them in ruby sworls arranged artistically about me. “I was able to ascertain what they meant, but not how the power within them is applied… save for one of them.”

The Rune of Stone came drifting over to my hand, and the ruby light flowing about it crystallized, while the black became obsidian. As the surrounding elves watched in astonishment, I bent to apply the Rune to the ground, and magic shimmered.

Without a sound or rumbling, the ground rose up around me, stone shoving itself out of the grass beneath me and lifting me and a circle of green from the earth in a broad circle, pushing me up a full dozen feet above the ground.

The Princess was staring up at me in astonishment. I walked up to the edge of the stone column, the other Holo-Runes fading away. I simply said, calmly and with great certainty.

Beneath my feet, the column flowed back down into the ground as seamlessly as it had been evoked in the first place, returning the healthy grass to the courtyard and leaving not the slightest sign there it had been brought up in the first place.

I went down to one knee. “This Edge humbly asks the High Cryptomancer that she be allowed to enter the Circles of Cryptomancy and learn its secrets under her authority!” I requested humbly and sincerely.

The knowledge that she was the High Cryptomancer could not be a secret to her personal guards, and there was no one else around to hide the revelation. It was probably more of an open secret among the elites of society, something you either stumbled into or were informed of as you rose in power. The fact I had deduced all that myself was another point in my favor… and I had already revealed my talent, and the fact I had already taken a step into these Circles.

Her sigh was almost inevitable, her expression complex as she considered me. “I know little more of you than you have chosen to reveal coming here, young Lady. Tell me why I should take such a risk, revealing such high secrets to an outsider, and moreso, one descended from a rival House?”

I was silent as I drew a scroll from inside my billowy sleeve, hung it in midair, drew forth another, and repeated until there were twelve scrolls hanging there under minor magic.

“These are scrolls. Within each of them are coffins very much like the one before you. They belong to four humans of Darokin, a warrior of the MacKlannisters, a halfling of the Shires, a rider of the Emirates, four dwarves of Rukheim, and a young knight of Wahrsherz.

“Regardless of your acceptance of my submission to the Circles, I will be delivering these dead to their homes. I have no intention of joining another Society, although I daresay I would qualify for at least another four of them, and I am certainly capable of compelling a junior member to admit me to them.

“I have made my appeal and I will stand by it. If you need time to consider, I will understand, and be about my tasks. I have a great deal to occupy my time, and will return in the future to receive your blessing or your dismissal.”

“I see.” She considered me oddly. “What rewards do you hope to earn by this generosity of yours?” she asked, glancing at the floating scrolls.

“Quite honestly, Your Highness, none at all. By their words, none of those who died were of higher birth or came from wealth. I doubt they have the funds to compensate me for my time. Let us say it is simply to spite the simpering ego of the dragon that killed them, and that is sufficient.”

I could see grim appreciation for that rather whimsical reason in the eyes of her bodyguards. Seeing a warrior’s body home from death in a strange place was a great honor in and of itself.

She studied me for another long moment. “I will give you an answer tomorrow. Return at dawn.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” I bowed deeply again, my scrolls disappearing inside my sleeve again. I turned away and paused again, before turning back. “There is another minor matter I believe you might be interested in, Your Highness.”

Her smile was a bit forced as she answered, “Oh?”

“For some reason, as I was coming along the road into Erendyl’s territory, I was briefly accosted by a dozen dark-skinned elves, presumably of House Zorozo. After I was through Petrifying the lot of them, I grew curious as to their motivations, who they were working for, and whyever they found the nerve to dare my displeasure.” I held up a clear quartz crystal, with several points of light dancing inside them.

“I preserved their detailed confessions on within this stone. Would Her Highness be interested in listening to them? Also, I buried the lot of them in an empty pit in the middle of nowhere and filled it in, if you should care to rescue them in your mercy and return them to their families… some time in the non-immediate future, perhaps.”

Her eyes fixed on the crystal in my hand, then drifted over to one of her advisors, an elfin who looked a great deal like her, and who suddenly had a very keen look in her eyes.

“I think I might find these questions very interesting, indeed,” the princess admitted softly. “Return tomorrow. I will have the teachers for your initial induction in the first Circle available for you, young Lady Edge.”

“Mistress,” I bowed again, making no smile of triumph or anything, calm and unruffled.

They were probably going to enjoy the sobbing and wailing of the interrogations, too. It was mostly mental illusions, but watching your friends getting ripped to pieces and swallowed by black roses with bloody skulls on their petals seemed to have taken a lot of the machismo out of the FAERY bandits creating trouble on the trade road.

. Who came up with these things?

My days for the immediate short term were quite busy. My instructor was a rather haughty elf of the Erewahr clan, blue-eyed and titian-haired, an obvious believer in the elitism of his bloodline and a total distrust of non-elves and elves who were not of his noble house.

I knew this was another test, and soon had him and his attitude so wrapped up in on how to act more personable that he could not have been arrogant and dismissive of me if he tried. Indeed, he was incredibly forthcoming on everything that I questioned him on, and of course I had no problem following along on what he was teaching me.

The one downside is that the training cost money, mostly for research and appropriate tools to undertake the study of Runes, as well as access to the books required for the task. A polite for a day of access to his personal library to show me the subject matter I needed gave me what I needed, and with I completely read and memorized every single book in his collection.

My studies advanced with almost frantic speed. I already had the skills in Calligraphy and Spellcraft needed to draw basic Runes. My instructor was a bit astonished at the number of Crafting skills I was familiar with for drawing Runes into gemstones, precious metals, wood, bone, and stone… and I could slum in the harder black metals of a smith if I had need to.

The First Circle of Cryptomancy involved learning the Truenames of unliving substances, which allowed the drawer to take control of said substances and manipulate them as deemed fit. The Runes required could be drawn on permanent materials and empowered to readiness, or they could be drawn on the spur of the moment.

Each Rune was a separate enlightenment for a Cryptomancer. The Rune for Stone, for example, was something I’d recognized, but when I started researching my own, it was subtly different from the one the late Ellyndrial had drawn in her book, understanding that our magical and physical perception and understanding of what Stone actually was and meant differed from one another.

Also, I was much higher in Caster Level than she was, which was important when it came time to use the Runes, as they were a percentage basis plus Caster Level to empower correctly and wield.

Each separate Rune of Matter cost as much in time, energy, and materials as researching a basic Valence I spell.

The Second Circle of Cryptomancy, the Runes of Life, was about controlling non-sapient creatures, both living and undead. I could control zombies and skeletons with Second Circle Runes, as well as animals, plants, fungi, even oozes and vermin. It was very Druidic in theme in some ways, although it extended into magical things that were sufficiently stupid.

Each such Rune cost the same as a Valence III to research, increasing in difficulty, time and cost. Magic was a very expensive profession!

Author's Note: I am going with the Gazeteer of Glantri interpretation of the Schools, not the Prestige Classes of the later boxed set.