"Hey Hazel, glad you’re back," I said over the connection while erasing my first sketch of my attempted ritual circle, I was pretty sure I needed to tweak my symbology a bit. "So I broke into this cool-looking ruin with futuristic Mana technology and I’m trying to learn ritualism so I can summon extra-dimensional beings. Would you happen to know anything about the subject?"In response, I heard what sounded like Hazel falling out of bed, knocking a chair over, shuffling papers, and heavy breathing before she finally responded: "Sorry for the delay. I needed to take notes. Tell me everything!"
"So that’s a no then?" I said, a little bit surprised at that fact. The principles involved here weren’t incredibly complex or anything, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find out. Once they bypassed the Mana requirements, at least. Those were fucking astronomical for some reason, likely relating to breaching planar walls.
"I have never heard of ritualism, no." Hazel replied, "So what is it?"
"Okay, but you have to explain a few things to me first. I’m having trouble figuring out a few things, and you probably have the information saved after all those years of stored memories." I said, starting my next attempt at constructing the circle. I was lucky I could just grow perfect lines, as I had never had a steady hand for drawing.
"Come on, just a little hint, I’ll tell you everything you want after." Hazel pleaded, and I could practically hear her puppy dog's eyes over the connection.
"Alright, fine, geez. So, you know how Mana types seem to split into aspects based on what people would believe they consist of? Or at least that’s my theory for how they work," I replied.
"Ellie, I had no idea how splitting runes worked until yesterday, no, I didn't know that. Go on, though." I could hear paper being shuffled about and Hazel furiously writing on the other side. I barely said anything. Is she coming up with her own theories already?
"Okay, so I think that’s a pattern with Mana. It resonates based on beliefs. Ritualism is just that, but given a physical form. You can represent beliefs through either objects or symbology, and then just add Mana and watch the result. Now when I say just add Mana I don't mean a little bit I mean an amount that would require over a decade of me just sitting there generating Mana to do a simple summoning ritual. I have no idea what non-summoning rituals would cost, though." I said, though those were just simple calculations, I could be off by a few years to a few millennia based on what I was summoning. But she asked for just a hint, so that’s all she’s getting.
"Oh… Where are you getting all that Mana?" Hazel asked, her writing halting as she realized the implications.
"The facility I’m in seems to have a system for that already. I’ll just be drawing from its reserves," I replied, throwing out another circle design. These things were trickier than they initially looked. It didn’t help that I hated all of the premade examples given in the books. They just seemed so inefficient and wasteful. "So, first thing I wanted to ask, I’ve found a bunch of books and they all seem to be written in English. Was everything translated into English when Eternia was created? Or is this just a set piece I’m walking around in?"
Hazel hummed to herself for a moment before responding, "No, it’s more of an automatic translation that’s happening. I’m pretty sure it’s part of the system itself between system entities. For example, I normally speak in German. The translation always uses your native language as a default. Whether it's a set piece or not depends on the Zone. Typically, a premade region will give you a Zone quest the moment you enter, but occasionally that won't happen. The best way to tell is to find an NPC, or basically a soulless creature mimicking being alive, who will not respond to anything that falls outside their programming. There shouldn't be any living people left in Zones pulled in from outside sources." Halfway through speaking, her voice took on a German accent.
"Did you switch to English part of the way through that sentence?" I asked
"Yes, sorry, I know my English isn’t very—" She began.
"Nope, you’re fine, feel free to use it if you’re comfortable with it. Your accent is adorable." I said, cutting her off before she got into it. I didn’t feel like having the discussion that not interrupting her would lead to.
She was quiet for a bit, so I continued, "So one more question, how the hell does levelling work? I didn’t get any levels for killing the Wretchspawn, which was level one hundred and fifty. I gained eight levels for killing three humans, whose levels I’ve forgotten, and I gained two for killing a level forty at level eleven. It doesn’t make any sense, so obviously there are hidden modifiers in play. Also, species levels seem different in some way. I’m levelling my species the fastest just by completing hidden objectives."I seemed to have startled her out of contemplation by asking the question, as she made an odd squeak when I started speaking. "Okay, so this was all explained during the tutorial, but obviously you didn’t get one. I’ll start with species levels since they’re the simplest. For non-humans, it's increased exclusively by achieving milestones. What those milestones are depends on the tags associated with your species, for example, you definitely have the plant tag—" I let out a low growl at the notion, but didn’t interrupt. "Meaning most of your milestones will be related to doing things a plant species would. I don’t know exactly what those are, but you’ll stumble on them eventually."That’s what I figured. If the milestone I got for taking one of the steps on his path was any indicator, I probably had an ‘Erxy's special little girl’ tag as well."For humans, our species level is just the average of our Profession and Class." Wow, I actually have a leg up on humans here? My species level is my highest, if I had to rely on my Profession and Class I’d be screwed. "The way to gain experience for your Profession is fairly obvious: perform tasks that align with the ideal of the Profession, the more complex or difficult, the more experience you gain. This brings me to how class levels work. Since classes are designed as our combat kits, all experience from kills goes to them. The reason for this is that at level ten, the amount of experience required seems to spike by a considerable amount. This will happen again at later levels, but you don’t have to worry about that right now."Experience itself is some kind of energy that accumulates in your soul. The closer the energy matches your soul, the better the absorption rate. Currently, your soul is in the process of diverging from being a human, but is still very similar. Hence, the humans you killed gave you a lot of experience. Later on, when levels aren’t as easy to gain, you may be able to sense how far from the next level you are by feeling that pool of energy in your soul. As for why you didn’t gain experience for killing the Wretchspawn, the creature was too far over your current level, and you weren’t given any experience to prevent powerleveling.""WHAT! Come on, I killed it all on my own; that can’t be designed right. I don’t have access to the bug report system. Can you report that for me?" I practically shouted across the connection. That’s a ton of levels I just missed out on due to a poorly implemented mechanic."They change it in two weeks anyway, I’m pretty sure it was included in Li Wei’s mass report. The new system uses the level of every contributor to the kill to determine whether you gain experience instead of the enemy level." She replied, "Now, if that’s everything, can we get back to the important stuff. The new magic system6 you found." I could hear the excitement in her voice and let out a sigh. I needed someone to bounce ideas off of, anyway, so I happily started describing my findings.A couple of hours later, I was holding my completed circle. Hazel had to go work on something with Li, so I was on my own again. She didn’t get into specifics about what she was doing—something about being able to collect new materials for items—but I didn’t pry. I was otherwise occupied anyway, so there was no need to involve myself in politics that had nothing to do with me.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Now all I had to do was build the larger version. Luckily, like I’d mentioned to Hazel, this room was equipped with a spot to inscribe circles. I wasn’t going to be doing any inscribing with a chisel, though. Growing the circle felt like a better idea—I could be more precise with my linework that way. I was using a modified glyphset from what the books I’d read contained, mostly making changes based on feel and letting [Roots that Bind] guide my understanding.
The only problem was I’d have to overwrite the current circle, which I hadn’t actually taken the time to examine yet.Looking it over, it seemed to be a summoning circle like all of the books in this room suggested it would be. But instead of being the main circle itself, it almost seemed like an auxiliary ritual. There was no bridge glyph anywhere, instead there were several glyphs that implied a connection to other circles. It was interesting, but didn’t mean much to me, so I just copied it down before hitting the ‘Erase’ button on the panel next to the circle inscription spot. A wave of Earth Mana washed over the circle, and it vanished, only clean flat stone left behind.I began to grow my circle on top of the stone. Creating it out of a moss that was imbued with a small amount of Wondersprout material to increase how much Mana it could handle. This was probably the best I could do to summon a Nature-based creature.Once complete, I grew an additional sprout in my hand to use as sacrificial material to connect to the plane. I just had to hope an artificial sprout counted. I did have the plant tag associated with me, so I wasn’t too worried. It should still be considered a plant even if it isn’t a real one.On the same panel I used to erase the circle, I hit ‘Start’ while channelling Nature Mana into the Wondersprout in my hand. As I felt Mana building up along the moss, once it was sufficiently saturated, I threw the sprout into the centre of the circle. As soon as it passed over the line at the edge of the ritual, the sprout lit up with a bright green light and began to dissolve.
Opening my eyes to the root structure of the world, I could see it peeling back in the centre of the circle, just as a thin barrier of roots grew along the edge of the circle, forming a dome over the top. The barrier was part of my ritual design. It was as if this part of the world was being sectioned off from the rest of it. The process was fascinating and I could see why it took so much goddamn Mana now. To alter the structure of the universe itself like this was likely extremely costly, both opening a hole to the beyond and holding whatever gets pulled through in a restricted space.That’s as far as I got before things started to go wrong.The instruction glyphs I had created, which, given that this was a simple test, only contained the rule ‘remain in the circle,’ began burning away rapidly. This shouldn’t have been possible unless I had pulled something that completely overpowered the material itself. A simple spriggan shouldn’t have anywhere near that amount of power. Maybe I shouldn’t have made so many modifications…
Slamming the emergency stop on the Mana transfer did nothing, the building of Mana continued and I could see a tiny crack opening in the centre of the circle as the roots of the world left the space within the barrier entirely. I could only hope the containment circle would hold back whatever the fuck I snagged long enough to banish it. Looking over what was left, the glyphs I had put in place to remove beings unrelated to the ritual automatically were completely gone, they hadn’t even burned away. It just looked like someone had just removed them from existence.Given it was too late to run, I pulled up the chair I had made and sat down, waiting to see if I was going to die or not. The ritual was taking longer than expected and pulling a lot more Mana than intended. But that just meant the potential blast radius was going to be wider.
A couple of moments after I had that thought, a hand reached through the crack and gripped the side of it. The hand itself was skeletal, but I was distracted from that fact when it did the absolutely impossible: It ripped the hole in space open through physical force alone.
Through the hole stepped what I’m pretty sure was a man, his skin grey, like a walking corpse. This drab skin tone matched his outfit, a crimson red petticoat carrying a level of worn-down elegance. The coat itself looked like someone had ripped it apart and sewn it back together in some kind of patchwork style. After he had fully emerged, he patted his coat down and looked up to meet my eyes.I tried to move and say something, but found myself bound in place by his gaze. Something about his eyes told me that if I pissed him off I would die before I even recognized I had made a mistake. I couldn't even feel his presence in the room, as if he didn't have any Authority to exert upon the world. But he didn't need any, because his existence alone seemed to be a statement of reality that no Authority I'd ever felt could match."Ah, my genuine apologies for hijacking your ritual, miss. I was just acting on orders from my patron, I’m sure you understand." His voice was soft, with an almost kind lilt to it and an accent I couldn’t place.I found myself nodding without intending to."In exchange for helping me out, I will return the favour. The design you used is rather inspired, if I say so myself, but you’ve left a vulnerability in your opening glyph. A door with a handle works fine if you aren’t expecting interference. Unfortunately, there are at least two dozen other divines trying to gain access to Kaelzar’s little project. I would recommend a door with no handle and a slat." He continued while looking over the circle, before simply stepping through the root barrier around the circle, shattering the wall as if it wasn’t even there."Thanks, I was worried about something like that being implied as unwelcoming." I squeaked, happy to take advice that would prevent this from happening again."It is, and that’s the point, isn’t it?" He gave me a small smile that would have made my blood freeze if I had any. "Only the one who meets the requirements may pass such a door. I’m sure you can figure out the rest. Either way, I have tasks to perform and I’d appreciate nobody else coming in behind me." A loud popping sound filled the room, and the hole closed.
The noise startled me, and in the moment I was distracted by the circle closing, the man had vanished. Well, I'm sure that won't lead to any disastrous consequences.
Implementing the change to the door was rather annoying. The invitation part of the ritual needed a complete reworking. The section detailing who to send the invitation to was fine, but the method by which the invitation is sent differs when a passkey is involved. I couldn’t just use a glyph of a hand gesturing to enter. Instead, I had to use a second circle to send the invitee a letter and imply that the letter has the passcode for the door in the next glyph.
I should probably change my passcode every summon as well as make it alphanumeric and at least twenty characters long… No, we’re working with gods here, forty characters.
Honestly, this whole system felt more like trying to create those symbols for signs. The ones that can be read universally, whether you understand the language on the sign or not. But then, using those symbols as a language in and of itself to tell a story. The story you’ve told is then registered as a spell.
I also realized how easy it would be to design a ritual to brute force through my previous one. You’d barely need two glyphs for the main portion, a hand on a knob and an open door would be enough. Plus, some kind of glyph to target my ritual in particular, I didn’t know what that one would be specifically, but I could make some guesses.
Honestly, given that rituals had a language in and of themselves, the fact that the books in this room seemed to be limited to summoning was a travesty. The opening glyph is the one that consumes enough Mana to level a small city. I’m fairly certain I could do some interesting things if I just learned the basics. That's something for me to worry about anyway.
Right now, I have to rework my design and try again.
Faeland's POV
Hanging over the Ruins of Valsir, I couldn’t help but feel disgust at Maleficarum's incursion. I had never been a fan of those vile creatures, no matter their uses. For a few nanoseconds, I debated eradicating it at its roots, but decided against it. That young summoner was a promising specimen, and this would be the perfect place for her to temper herself.
If she couldn’t survive something as simple as this, then she wouldn’t be of any use either way.
Taking out a small notebook from my jacket pocket, I made a note.
‘Ellie Winters: Potential Recruit’
If she manages to close the incursion on her own before it finishes budding, I’m sure Astaris would be happy to have her remade into one of his own. That said, I'll have to investigate her… a unique species. We couldn’t have any unexpected variables get in the way of our plans.
It seems somebody decided to pull an old relic out of a bin somewhere and stuffed a soul inside it. I had no idea how they managed to do that, but I’m also not much of an artificer.
Looking down at the Ythrazhul, waiting for her to emerge from the tunnel system, I decided to lend my hand one more time. She made my job far easier by allowing me access to this plane.
Pointing a finger at the spawn, I watched it collapse as its soul was snuffed out.
Turning towards the capital city of the summoner’s original species, I took a step forward and appeared directly above it. From there, I settled in, taking a comfortable seat in the sky. With notebook in hand, I began my cursory evaluation.