Trail 62: Knives, Bandages, Rituals, and Magic

  --- Jon Whitaker ---

  “So, what is the point of today’s exercise?” Miss Edna asked, looking around their little forest clearing.

  “Well, since you don’t want me doing anything to… ‘strenuous’ and Jon apparently can’t be trusted around firearms-”

  “Not my fault!” He shouted from where he stood, juggling a couple of throwing knives.

  “-today we’re going to focus on throwing knives.” His Ma continued, setting a wooden target against a nearby tree. “Something that Jon tells me you’ve got some experience with?”

  “I do.” Miss Edna nodded. “Sometimes I’ll win free drinks at the watering hole by challenging people to throwing competitions. Me and a couple lumberjacks escalated all the way from darts, knives, cards and even ax throwing at one point.”

  “Ah, then maybe you can give us some pointers.” His Ma smiled offering Miss Edna a couple of her throwing knives. “Hopefully, you won’t need magic this time.”

  His mystical mentor scoffed before taking the knives and frowning as she gave them a once over, “Okay, these are not normal throwing knives.”

  “Technically they’re throwing kunai.” His Ma admitted, before throwing one like a dart at the target and another from her shoulder. “I like this kind specifically because they’re easier to throw multiple of them at a time since you don’t have to account for spins, just force and accuracy. The real trick was finding a brand where the handle size wouldn’t mess with the throw since like with most other knives kunai weren’t really meant for throwing.”

  “But wouldn’t the spin give them more hacking force on impact? I mean that’s how most throwing knives stick to the target.” Miss Edna pointed out.

  “It would but I prefer a sort of shotgun approach to it.” His Ma explained. “One knife you can walk off, but having three sticking out of your gut is more likely to mess something up. And since you can only accurately throw so many knives at once, the rate of fire is important.”

  “Then why not just focus on throwing darts or needles?” Miss Edna asked. “I know that’s a thing somewhere.”

  “Eh, knives have more mass, so I think of it like different calibers of bullets.” His Ma shrugged. “Ya know?”

  “I guess, whatever works for you.” Miss Edna shrugged back.

  Scene Consequences

  -Gained 2XP to Throwing.

  --*Skill Rank Up* Throwing Lv. 4 (1/10)

  ---

  “Okay, and while the cat ‘s away the mice shall play.” Miss Edna clapped, once his Ma had set out for her follow up with the doctor. Something she wanted done as soon as possible and had insisted on doing by herself after having both him and Miss Edna underfoot for so long.

  He couldn’t help but frown despite Miss Edna’s excitement. “You know we’ve only got a couple of hours before she gets back, right?”

  “I know, her being around is really making it hard to get in a magic lesson, due to your whole ‘keep magic secret thing’ which is kind of stupid.” Miss Edna told him. “I mean, your mom knows I’m an Arcane and she loves me. Hell, isn’t one of your aunts or uncles a Practitioner too?”

  “The magic isn’t the problem, the problem is explaining why I wanted to learn magic.” He sighed, having had this conversation with her more than once.

  “To be like your other mom?” Miss Edna offered, before pointing at Pix who’d flown out as soon as the coast was clear. “Or, I don’t know, can we point out that you’ve got Pix and wanted to learn how to take care of her? There’s got to be a lie in there somewhere.”

  “You know I can’t lie to my ma…” He groaned.

  Miss Edna gave him a dry look.

  “Lies of omission don’t count.” He shrugged. “Her house, her rules.”

  His other parent merely rolled her eyes at that. “Fine, whatever. We’ve only got so much time so let’s try to fit this lesson in before you make things even more complicated than they need to be.”

  “And… what lesson were you thinking?” He wondered, happy to change the subject.

  “Well, you’ve been messing with Spell Scripts a lot and while I myself am no expert on Spell Scripts I did remember this one thing I know that every expert does have!” Miss Edna explained as she reached into her hair and pulled out a roll of bandages. “Spell Bandages!”

  “Spell Bandages?” He repeated, eyeing the blank roll of bandages that were actually a bit smoother than the medical gauze he was more used to from first aid. “I think I’ve heard of those before but… I’ve got no idea what they are.”

  “Right, so you know how when you use Spell Scripts it destroys the script unless your control is insanely good.” Miss Edna began as she unfurled a second roll onto the living room table. “Well a fun little detail is that if you place the right script on the ends of these bandages you can actually create a simple Spell Engine that will instead burn out the Spell Scripts in the order they’re written rather than the one you use to trigger them. It’ll even use the trigger script as the trigger point!”

  “Okay, so how do we do that?”

  “Well, first -since you’re a beginner and I need to look up the next version- we’ll cover this bandage in… a hundred or so copies of the same script, and then we’ll draw a sort of magical fuse through all of them connecting the first and last one.” Miss Edna explained as she began doing just that on her own roll of bands. “By the way since neither you nor your mom have any survival instincts, mine is going to be a simple healing spell.”

  “Hey, we have really good survival instincts!” He frowned.

  “That have you both picking fights with inhuman monsters that eat people.”

  “Well… we survive those fights!”

  Scene Consequences

  -Thanks to Miss Edna’s help gained 3XP to Script Crafting.

  --Currently: Lv. 5 (7/12)

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  -Jon has learned how to create (Basic) Spell Scripts, this allows him to equip a single Spell Script and use it as a Melee Quick Action so long as he pays 1MP. (Note: That’s the base cost of a script, not an added cost.)

  --Note: You can equip two of these at a time, but you cannot equip any enchanted rings or gloves onto your hands with these since they count as magical equipment in those slots. (There’s a perk that fixes this for Script Equipment, but standard magic rules until then.)

  -Thanks to Miss Edna gained: Spell Bandage (Simple Healing Script)- For 1MP user can heal for 5 PHP.

  -The Spell Bandage Jon makes will be voted on later.

  ---

  “So glad to see you’ve decided to study this process for yourself.” DeSade told him as the man’s demonic butler let him down into the basement where a large spell circuit sat on the floor.

  “It’s not every day someone jailbreaks the Arcane Nexus.” He shrugged. (Well, that and I have to make sure you’re not screwing me over.)

  DeSades smirk let him know the man knew why he was really here even as he admitted that, “In reality people do try to jailbreak the system every day, just to… minimal success, but few of those people have my resources, be they my finances, knowledge, or suppliers.”

  “Yeah, you mentioned that you were going to need a few days to get everything together, but you’re already drawing the spell circuit?” He frowned, looking at the half finished circuit and unable to make heads or tails of it.

  Rather than answering, DeSade asked, “Hmm, tell me, have you studied Ritualism all that much?”

  “No. The only advanced art I’ve really looked at is Arcane Shamanism.” He answered.

  “Well, the dark arts are also considered advanced arts albeit dangerous ones, but I’m aware that despite being my apprentice you’ve let those studies fall behind.” DeSade passive aggressively reminded him, before explaining that, “Ritualism is the study of the flows and rules of magic, not dissimilar to standard Magical Theory, but distinctly different in the fact that it goes beyond simple theory and into practice. The Spell Scripts used by virtually all Practitioners, is actually the most widespread form of Ritualism, and is frequently tied together with the main art.”

  “Okay, that makes sense.” And given what he’d picked up from using Contracting Catalysts as well as creating his own Contracting Circuit. “I’m guessing that in order to jailbreak the Nexus you’re going to need more than one Catalyst?”

  “Quite.” DeSade nodded, before continuing his lecture. “Though it isn’t uncommon for Ritualism to make use of multiple catalysts in general, the circle and its material being the most common one as it forms a boundary for the magic to work. From there the placement of internal materials will allow one to amplify, control, or diminish the effects of various magical influences allowing one to perform greater feats than they could manage off of the cuff.”

  “And given how jailbreaking the Nexus is a… massive feat, I’m guessing we’re going to need a lot of catalysts beyond the Void Core.” He figured eyeing some of the crates lying around the basement of a house that DeSade had bought not even a month ago.

  “Theoretically, the Void Core is all you need.” DeSade corrected, as if that were a mere technicality. “But in such a case it would only allow you to summon one such entity and with no real control over that entity beyond the fact that it could not leave the initial circle. Which is not as strong a defense as many assume in the face of a creature operating off of a completely different set of metaphysics.”

  “The rest of the materials we will be using are about controlling the flow of magic, protecting ourselves, and installing a… backdoor of sorts into the Nexus’s programming to allow us to repeat the feat.” DeSade explained as he made his way over to one of the crates before removing a handful of colorful stones and holding them up between his fingers. “One of the most common catalysts for such things are gemstones, due to both their chemical makeup influencing how each one works with the various Deviant energies as well as the symbolic effect that thousands of years of human psychology have placed upon their conceptuality.”

  One by one DeSade continued from crate to crate explaining the most common catalysts, most of which they likely wouldn’t be using for this particular ritual despite the small fortune the Dark Lord had spent on the teaching aids.

  Scene Consequences

  -A/N: Reminder -to Spacebattlers- I warned he was going to overwrite the subject with one of his choice related to jailbreaking the Arcane Nexus.

  -Jon has unlocked Ritualism.

  --Ritualism can be used to amplify the effect or power of a spell by using additional Items and/or AP when casting it. Effect scales with Skill Level.

  --Thanks to Occultism gained 8XP to Ritualism.

  --Thanks to overlap with Spell Scripts gained 5XP to Ritualism.

  --Gained bonus 4 XP thanks to DeSade. (Reduced by 2 due to being a new skill.)

  --*Skill Level Up* Ritualism Lv. 3 (7/8)

  -For Learning a new Magic Art, gained 1XP to Occultism.

  --Currently: Occultism Lv. 8 (12/18)

  ---

  “Alright, what do you think?” Artemis asked him as she removed a cover from the piece of the Horror’s arm that they’d dedicated to Val’s project.

  “It’s safe to touch right?” He checked remembering his last interaction with the arm, before picking it up when the other teen gave him a nod.

  He gave the flattened piece of what looked like black leather a once over. “Well, as a base it should work, but uh how is it supposed to stick to her arm?”

  Rather than answering, Artemis merely waved off his question. “I’ve a few ideas for that but adding them now would detract from the next part.”

  “I’m guessing that has something to do with the massive Spell Circuit on the ground?” He figured, noting how it took up most of Artemis’s workshop floor. “As well as the empty ones you set up on the walls?”

  “Yeah, since what we’re doing is extremely complicated I went ahead and anchored a few additional circuits to the main one with some Ritualism to keep the whole thing stitched together.” Artemis explained, her manic eyes looking extremely pleased with herself in spite of the tired rings surrounding them. “Spent all night getting it just right, This should allow us to add anything we can think of while mitigating any potential blowback from the enchantments since we have to add more than one at once. Though I did have to draw on the ceiling to anchor it all.”

  “So you did.” He nodded, because while he was only just getting how Ritualism worked, he thought he understood what she was doing with the mirrored circuits on the ground and ceiling, with the latter being connected to the wall circuits via string. “I’m guessing just connecting the circuits naturally would’ve made things… unstable?”

  “For someone like Miss Edme, no.” Artemis assured him, before less reassuringly adding that, “At my level? I’d probably blow the whole shed up and that would piss my parents off… and kill us… maybe.”

  “Right… I’m just going to uh.” He put his fingers to his chest before flicking them out and summoning Pix in a small explosion of lights.

  “Oh, right you’re contracted to a Fairy.” Artemis blinked, staring at Pix as she got her bearings. “Did you have an idea for using her?”

  Pix gave Artemis a contemplating look, as if she couldn’t decide if she should be offended at the words ‘using her’.

  “I was just going to ask her to heal us if everything… explodes.” He shrugged.

  “Ooh, she can heal. Right, some fairies can do that…” Artemis nodded, her tired mind seemingly going off on a tangent as she kept looking at and away from Pix. “Most people use them for fairy dust, but you did have that light the entire time. Thought it was just one of your spells… I wonder, is it a spell or a conceptual affinity?” Artemis asked, looking at the little fairy with a mad gleam to her eyes.

  “Uh, an affinity?” He answered as Pix decided it was better to put him between her and the… inquisitive Arcane.

  “Then I have an idea but ooh, we’d have to convert that with… Wait, if we can do that with her then we can also do it with the Horror! Actually, why limit it to conceptual affinities? If we can do concussive then why not something sharper?!” Artemis began to pace, a smile on her face as she grew increasingly manic.

  “Um, uh, maybe, maybe you should tell me what you’re thinking?” He frowned, rubbing the back of his neck.

  Artemis gave him a confused look. “But I am?”

  “I, I know but… maybe we should write out what we’re actually going to do, I mean… the arm only has so much magic to power itself after all?” He tried reminding her.

  “Eh, it’s got enough power to run for decades without running out, especially if you supplement more complex functions with your own supply as a sort of ignition sequence.” Artemis shrugged. “But you are right, we can only fit so much in here without blowing the whole thing up!”

  The manic arcane stood still in the middle of her workshop for a moment. “Uh, what should we add to this thing?”

  Scene Consequences

  A/N: Due to the complexity of a shopping vote, this one will only be available on Spacebattles but as a consolation to the people on Royal Road the Throwing Perk vote and the starting Spell Bandage vote will be restricted to them. Fair? Fair.

  For anyone curious about what the 20 options on the Spacebattles Project are:

  Additional Notes:

  -This will be a plan vote. No individual options.

  -Reminder the Core Effect: Royal Guard: Whenever Val performs a Guard against a Physical attack she’ll store the blocked damage up to a threshold. She can then unleash this stored damage as a special attack of the last Damage type.

  -This core effect will influence the available options for this project.

  -Each item on this list had a base price that I reduced by 1 per relevant Skill Rank.

  -Any unused Potential will be used by Artemis to apply her own touches. (Note: We don’t know her affinities, so you’ll just have to trust her.)

  Now pick what you want to add to Val’s Project, you have 48 Potential.

  []- Stored Guard (I): Increases the maximum storage capacity of the arm. (13 Potential.)

  []- Stored Guard (II): Greatly increases the maximum storage capacity of the arm. (23 Potential.)

  []-Unchanged Burst: Allows the user to keep the current damage type rather than changing when blocking a new damage type. (8 Potential.)

  []-Force Burst: Allows the user to convert the special attack’s damage type to [Blunt] applying [Concussed] on Crits. (8 Potential)

  []-Slashing Burst: Allows the user to convert the special attack’s damage type to [Slash] applying [Bleed] on Crits. (8 Potential)

  []-Piercing Burst: Allows the user to convert the special attack’s damage type to [Pierce] applying [Ruptured] on Crits. (8 Potential)

  []-Burst of Fear: Using Horror’s [Fear] aspect the user can choose to convert the damage type to an AOE [Mental] attack that applies [Stressed] and [Fear] on Crits. (8 Potential.)

  []- Split Bursts: Uses the Horror’s [Divided] aspect to split the stored charge into 3 uses. Can only be used while fully charged. (13 Potential.)

  []- Inventory (I): Use the Horror’s [Seal] aspect to create a small Inventory -Purse Size- for Val to store items in. (8 Potential.)

  []- Inventory (II): Use the Horror’s [Seal] aspect to create a medium Inventory -Backpack Size- for Val to store items in. (13 Potential.)

  []- Inventory Auto-Sorter: (Requires an Inventory Upgrade) Inventory now auto-sorts contents allowing them to be more easily found. (7 Potential.)

  []- Defensive Burst: Use Jon’s [Defender] affinity to consume stored damage to raise a Defensive check by that amount. This check does not absorb damage for Guard. (8 Potential.)

  []- Defensive Guard (I): Use Jon’s [Defender] affinity to grant a small bonus to all Guard checks, allowing them to block/absorb more damage. (8 Potential.)

  []- Defensive Guard (II): Use Jon’s [Defender] affinity to grant a decent bonus to all Guard checks, allowing them to block/absorb more damage. (13 Potential.)

  []-Shadow Guard: Use both the [Defender] and the [Shadow] affinities to allow the user to block attacks over a small area, applying [Protected: (User)] to the allies in that area. (12 Potential.)

  []- Continuous Defense: Use Jon’s [Defender] affinity to reduce any damage the user takes while worn. (8 Potential.)

  []- Stored Defense: (Requires Continuous Defense) Mix Jon’s [Defender] Affinity with the Horror’s [Seal] to store the damage prevented this way. (12 Potential.)

  []- Mental Defense: Use Jon’s [Defender] and [Moon] affinities to allow the Guard to block and absorb [Mental] and [Spiritual] attacks. (12 Potential.)

  []- Prefered Defense: Use Jon’s [Hunter] and [Defender] affinities, to increase all of the Guard’s Defenses against the currently stored Damage Type. (12 Potential.)

  []- Healing Burst: Use Pix’s [Mending] affinity to convert stored damage into a Healing Burst, restoring a portion of the damage as Physical Health. (16 Potential)

  --This last one actually has a penalty because Pix doesn’t like working with people outside of Jon’s [Court]. Her Magical Assistant skill nulls most of it, but there’s still a 1 point penalty.

  Patreon Thanks

  Thank You:

  -Rush99999

  -Kcx1

  -James Walsh

  -Regis Stella The Brony Pirate

  If you want to support these side stories or the setting in general, check out the .

  In fact, over on the Patreon we've started up a vote for a . (Note: It will be free to read, but only Paying Patreons will be able to vote.) I won't start the Quest proper for another two or three months since I intend to finish the first book of -we're in the final 10 Chapters- before then but we're still doing the voting now so I can sort out any final planning things.

  While the Runoff vote and everything after will be a Paid Exclusive, the initial vote is free. If anyone is interested here are the currently available options. (Only Counting Votes on Patreon Site.)

  -Anarchy Archetypes: The Gambler of Fates (Isekai Deck Building Quest)

  --Synopsis: He should've told the pretty girl no.

  But he didn't, now he's possessed by 'Lady Luck' a gambling addicted spirit that insists on nudging him towards some grand destiny while making him play her games where Luck and Skill are the only things keeping her from accidentally killing him.

  Something that wouldn't be not good but manageable if he wasn't stranded on another world where every other thing wants to kill him with his only way of getting home to his family being to track down five other people possessed by their own spirits.

  He really should've told the pretty girl no...

  --Tags: [Card Based Powers], [Survive The Isekai], [World Hopping Adventure]

  --Inspirations: Amphibia, Owl House, League of Legends, Psycho Duel Revelations

  -The Lamplighter's Guild (A Gothic Monster Hunter Quest)

  --Synopsis: Waking up with no memories, his father's corpse, and a message telling him to find his kidnapped sister, a young man sets out into a Victorian world filled with magic and monsters.

  His only hint to track down his father's old friend the leader of the Lamplighter's Guild. A group that keeps the cities lamps lit at night to protect everyone from the monsters that prowl the dark, lurking in the outskirts, and just waiting to sink their teeth in should the lights go out.

  This friend agrees to help him only if he can prove himself, so now he must hunt that which goes bump in the night, while also trying to find those who can help him to find the last living member of his family.

  --Tags: [Monster Hunter Protagonist], [Build Your Team], [Sword, Science, And Sorcery]

  --Inspirations: Lies of P, Bloodborne, Castlevania, Warhammer Fantasy

  -Simon Lorde, The Overlord (An Isekai Overlord Quest)

  --Synopsis: The Overlord is an infamous figure who has risen and fallen numerous times throughout history, conquering kingdoms, kidnapping princesses and unleashing an army of monsters.

  Simon Lorde is an archeology professor who wants nothing to do with any of that, he's content being a teacher, the only princess he's interested in is his wife, and the only monsters he unleashes are on D&D night.

  Unfortunately, he's now woken up in world simultaneous very familiar and very foreign with no idea how he got here, a magic gauntlet on his arm that won't come off, and half a dozen bickering overlords talking inside of his head.

  --Tags: [Voices In Your Head], [Kingdom Building], [Multiple Fantasy Kingdoms]

  --Inspirations: Adventure Time, She-Ra, Disco Elysium, Legend of Zelda

  -The Black Briar Library (An Eldritch Library Quest)

  --Synopsis: The Black Briar Library is a place that exists between Dreams and Reality, connected to the Akashic Records the massive library collects the stories of any person that catches the interest of its Eldritch Chairman.

  Of course 'Collecting' means many things, and is left up to the discretion of the Library's many librarians. A group of misfits and outcasts whose solace was in the quiet depths of the libraries that housed the fantastical stories they loved so much that the Chairman couldn't help but welcome them.

  Which is why the Chairman turns to you and asks, will you be one of her Librarians? Will you record the story of the Black Briar Library itself?

  --Tags: [Switchable Protagonists], [Each Campaign = A Story Derivative], [Dimensional Travelers]

  --Inspirations: Limbus Company, Library of Ruina, Grim Fairytales, Various Media

  -Smile Like You Mean It (A Demon Razing Hell Quest)

  --Synopsis: They say Hell is where bad people go, and that Home is where you make it, so what does it mean when you make your Home in Hell?

  Booker is a capital D Demon. That is one of the few things he remembers after waking in an alley with a static filled hole in his skull and the instinct that he needs to find something that's missing.

  And so he sets out in a Hell very different than the one presented by religion trying to piece together who he is and what happened to him. To do so he'll research forbidden knowledge, make demonic deals, and kill whoever gets in his way all with a smile in his face.?

  --Tags: [Affably Evil Demon], [Functionally Dysfunctional Urban Hell], [Taking The Whole Show Over]

  --Inspirations: Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss, Project Moon (Setting), MADTOWN

  Choose your perk (A) and your spell bandage (B).