096, 2/2

Back in his stone tower in his house, Erick held up a full-torus diamond ring to the afternoon light. The ring was, perhaps, one of the most precisely carved rings he had ever made, and a culmination of a great deal of experimentation. But it had also taken a lot of work. Grinding, measuring. Regrinding. More measuring. Breaking failures and creating specially made tools of his own designs in order to grind properly.

Erick had wanted to make a ‘[Perfect Cut]’ spell in order to automatically grind his gems in a perfect manner, but in the words of Phagar: ‘All versions already invented. You have to wait 3 months to buy or make that one.’

Then Erick had asked, ‘[Condense Particle], then [Condense Carbon], then [Create Diamond], and then [Cut Diamond]? Or maybe tier 5, [Special Gem Cut]?’

‘There are several ways to get there. It’s what you have up to [Create Diamond], then you take [Gemshape] from [Stoneshape] and try to create [Measured Diamond Cut]. Other gems would require other [Create Gem] spells. If you make it well, you’ll get [Perfect Diamond Cut]. You could actually make that spell now, if you wanted. You just need [Gemshape].’

‘What about a generalized gem creation spell? [Grow Crystal]?’

Phagar words had taken a mildly joyful tone, as he had said, ‘That spell has already been made. The implementation is very, very tricky, though. But if you started with [Condense Crystal], you could work up to [Perfect Crystal Cut].’

After that conversation, Erick had almost bought [Gemshape], right past [Stoneshape], just so that he could then attempt to make a ‘[Perfectly Cut Diamond Toroid]’ spell at tier 3, but he wasn’t sure he needed to do that in order to create a ‘good enough’ cut, or that he even wanted to risk the failure of a tier 3 spell. It would be ten days to remake that spell if he failed, and he didn’t feel like doing that. So Erick stared at his toroid, and thought.

And then he set that down, back onto the soft, blue cloth of the table, ensuring it would not be scratched upon any stray diamond dust in the room. He picked up another, as-perfect-as-he-could-cut-it enchanting-worthy gem from that cloth. This one was about two inches across, and rather unusual. It was the basic octahedral shape that naturally formed as the seed diamond grew under [Crystallize Diamond], but instead of having all the jumbled, raised growth planes that naturally occurred on every diamond Erick grew, Erick had cut this one down to its base, perfect octahedral shape. It looked like two perfect pyramids stacked to each other’s bottoms.

The ring was a culmination of all of Erick’s attempts at enchanting All-Stat rings, and a minor experiment. The octahedron was an experiment in odd perfection. Both were weird. Soon, they’d be even weirder, because of a slightly different conversation Erick had had with Phagar.

The God of Death and Time, had said, ‘That’s technically a Particle Spell… It certainly already exists as a normal spell… which goes along with what you’re planning next, in two months…’ There was a pause. ‘Go ahead and try for it.’

The way Phagar had answered Erick’s question left a lot to be desired, and left Erick feeling slightly concerned. But he was going to make the spell, anyway.

Erick took off his rings and set them into a strong box under and beside his work table. Then, he took the perfectly carved, unenchanted ring and hid it away, taking care to wrap it in soft blue cloth first, to protect it from scratches. Diamond was really hard, but scratches of micrometers were horrible to [Mend] and then buff out; Erick had learned his lesson about that nuisance a long time ago.

He looked down upon his octahedral experiment.

Diamond had a very large refractive index. Larger than most other gems suitable for enchanting. This meant that when light went in, it had a tendency to stay inside, until it came out in tiny, glittering, ‘fire’, as they used to call diamond sparkles, back on Earth. Diamonds were already great for basic enchanting, because in basic enchanting, Stat light went in, and bounced around quite a while, before degrading. That degrading was due to diamonds being clear, of course. Natural light would come in to any un-silvered diamonds and interfere with the Stat light. This was why pearls were best for enchanting almost any Stat; they repelled outside influence, but also trapped whatever was in them for a very long time. You just had to get through that outer layer without breaking that outer layer.

… Now that Erick had [Duplicate], and a lot of money, maybe he should buy a really, really good enchanting-grade pearl.

… Oh. This was what the Headmaster did, wasn’t it? Ha!

… Or maybe not? Erick had no idea about any of that.

Sapphires, and their counterparts, rubies, were great for enchanting their respective Stats, because blue or red light could stay inside and not be interfered with, while every other color got disrupted by the gem itself.

But Erick had solved the problem of contaminated light inside diamonds with a well made reflective outer coating, made of diamond itself. The hope today, though, was to allow other people to take his idea, and create rings themselves, using the spell he was about to make, right now.

Erick picked up the octahedral diamond, holding it in his right hand, as he loosened up, then gave a tiny ditty to the world,

 

“A twist guides wavelengths of bright

“in to this space, one way; erudite!

“It’s not darkness, not here

“it’s reflection, my dear.

“Internally, perfected, [Trapped Light].”

 

For a brief moment, everything was too bright, too real, and then waves of mana rolled through Erick, into every pore and down his right arm, through the whorls of his fingerprints, into the gem, twisting blood out of his surface veins as darkness, pure and utter, soaked into the octahedron. Erick flinched, yelped, and dropped the diamond to the table, to the cloth. The diamond continued to darken as Erick winced like knives had gone down his arm, as he grabbed the rod of [Treat Wounds] he kept on an open shelf under the workbench. Wielding the rod with his left hand, he tapped himself once, activating the spell within, as he looked down at his bloody right arm.

Bright red and bleeding lightning bolt wounds traced down from the tips of each finger of his right hand, joining together in jumbled messes across his skin, following paths laid down by the veins and bones and tendons under the surface, tracing toward his torso. None of the wounds got much past his elbow. As the healing magic went to work, those wounds faded over, first with angry scars, then with silver skin, before fading further, back to normal. He flexed his hand. It tingled, but even that tingle began to fade.

He was fine.

He had been wounded, but whatever. Erick turned his attention to the dark diamond on the blue cloth in front of him.

The object was darker than black, and yet, it seemed rimmed by light; like a hole cut in the world, made all the more strange by the world highlighting the oddity in saturation and hue. The only thing visible upon the empty space were floating, bloody fingerprints. Erick tossed a tiny [Cleanse] at the diamond, and at himself. Blood evaporated in thick twirls, fully transforming the black diamond to unreality, as flaking blood peeled away from his right arm, turning into thick air.

Some blue boxes appeared.

 

 

 

 

 

Erick read the box, saying. “Ten days, eh?” He looked to his closed cabinets, and with his Handy Aura, opened one of the thick, small doors. He pulled out a box of tester diamond orbs. He set the box to the side, and got one orb. With a directed thought, and a small cast, the orb turned solid black. He checked the spell box. “Level 2, means… 20 days max? Oh. This one is going to last a long time.” Erick chuckled to himself, marginally thrilled to see [Luminous Trap] was such a long lasting spell.

He turned another diamond solid black.

Erick imbued a fourth diamond with [Luminous Trap], then cast a purple All-Stat lightmask across the workstation, clipping every black diamond made so far. He quickly tucked the octahedral diamond and all but one spherical gem into a cubbyhole under the work desk, then he conjured his armor, layering his body in thick, white padding and tough gloves, all except for the pointer tip of his finger on his right hand. His finger was still slightly traced with silver scars, but that was fine. He touched the remaining spherical gem, and began channeling mana through every one of his Stats, producing a purple prominence that soaked into the darkness.

The black diamond soaked, and drank, and devoured the mana light, without end. Which was weird. Normally, these things exploded at Plus-10 All-Stats. Erick got far past the explosion threshold, and kept going. And going. And going…

The diamond popped, like a fire cracker, but it was a tiny explosion, turning the diamond mostly to dust.

Erick got the second black diamond sphere and placed it on the workbench, in the purple lightmask. He channeled better, this time, stopping just before the last one exploded. From there, he retrieved a blank metal bracelet from another closed cabinet and [Metalshape]d the stone to the steel. Slipping it around his wrist, Erick checked his Status.

“Huh.” He stared down at the bracelet. “You’re plus 22. That’s twice as good as you should be—” His numbers went down in the blue box. “Oh!” He shoved his wrist, and the black diamond bracelet, back into the purple lightmask. The item did not degrade to plus-21. He pulled it out of the mask. It degraded to 20, then 19, then Erick stuck his hand back into the lightmask. It remained 19 for a good thirty seconds, before Erick smiled, and said, “I suppose I can enchant a purple lightmask onto each item. The purple reflection seems to—”

The diamond bracelet shattered like a cherry bomb going off on his skin. He yelped, but only out of surprise. The explosion did not hurt; not with all of his [Personal Ward] and the dense, prismatic air of the house all around him, and the fact that the explosion had been directed away from him. Erick slipped the charred bracelet off of his arm, and got the octahedral diamond out from under the workbench. He first dismissed the purple lightmask over the workbench, then enchanted the octahedron with a purple lightmask that adhered directly to the skin of the black diamond, giving the otherworldly, hole-in-reality gem an ethereal purple rim.

Now why was he doing this, at all?

He had gotten the idea from looking at his [Vivid Gloom], today, and seeing how it sucked in all light. Making the specific spell that duplicated that spell’s light trapping mechanism had seemed interesting, and it had worked. But what came after was quite another matter entirely. He did not expect to make something better than what he had already crafted, but that was the purpose of experimentation, was it not? To find new and interesting things, and then use them to find more new and interesting things.

Remaking his own rings into much better artifacts was only a few steps away. And now that he had [Duplicate], he could take his experiments in odd directions, multiple times per attempt. [Mend] was great for redoing minor failed experiments, but once enough magic got pumped into these little rings, [Mend] just did not cut it; they weren’t ‘minor’ magical items, at that point.

So while his thought process on this current experiment was a bit muddled, it was all connected to learning how to be a better enchanter. That was the actual goal, today. Everything else had been a happy accident.

Erick took the black, purple-rimmed octahedral, and cast [Duplicate]. A clear diamond, exactly the same as the first but without all the temporary spells, appeared in his other hand. He smiled.

And then he started to go through his inventory for further experimentation, and began crafting, in earnest. Platinum rains fell from the sky, occasionally, to fill up the trough and allow him to experiment further with silver coatings. It wasn’t long till he discovered that his silver coating was inferior to perfect internal reflection magic.

… Which was… interesting.

Also highly frustrating.

But oh well! Inventions happened in iterations. No one made a computer from scratch; everyone stood upon the shoulders of giants. As that thought occurred to Erick, as [Duplicate]d rings, toroids, and spheres littered his workspace, he remembered that he did not need to work through his own trial and error, either.

He went to find Kiri, in her room on the third floor.

Kiri was fully dressed in her own green [Conjured Armor], wearing thick goggles, and looking down at her lightmasks and her own piles of diamond dust. Her lightmasks were green, though. She did not instantly notice him at the doorway, but Sunny sure did. The little flying snake [Familiar] uncoiled from her resting spot on a plush white cushion, beside the door to the room. Ophiel twittered playfully at the snake, while Sunny shifted a dozen different colors, and took to the air.

Kiri startled, then whipped around. “Oh!” She asked, “Hey? What’s up?”

“What do you know of reflective magics cast on gems, to trap the Stat-light inside? Other people have done this before, right?”

She removed her goggles, then said, “Reflective magics? Yes. People have tried that route before, but the outcome is always weakened enchantments and destroyed gems.” She set her goggles aside, saying, “Your mundane solution of the silver diamond coating is both new, and one of the best versions of such a solution ever recorded. The fact that the bond is at the molecular level is how it works so well, as there is no room for surface inclusions like how you’d normally get.”

Erick walked into the room, taking out the [Luminous Trap]’s blue box, and handing it to Kiri. While she read, scrunched her face, and reread, and her eyes went wide, Erick picked up a stray diamond sphere from the box of spheres on Kiri’s table. He turned it dark and set it down on her table, not saying a thing, wondering how Kiri would respond.

Kiri’s eyes latched upon the dark gem, as she said, “Oh! I remember!” She laughed as she picked up the black diamond. “Oh my gods! Does it really take in Statlight, too?”

“Yes.” Erick said, smirking. “I worked out some minor problems and got a sphere up to plus-25 All Stat. You have to enchant the sphere with an All-Stat lightmask, though, otherwise stray outside influences get sucked in and the thing rapidly explodes. I got toroid rings over Plus 50.”

Kiri held the spot of void in her hand, saying, “It’s a Blackvoid Gem!”

Erick smiled. He knew Kiri would know something he didn’t.

Kiri explained, “Tulamana Blackvoid was an owl shifter from Nelboor, 500 or whatever odd years ago. ‘Blackvoid’ wasn’t her real name. When she invented the spell that made her famous, she took it as her last name; [Blackvoid]. The Script version is called [Trap Light]. It’s [Ward] and [Rebound], but no one has managed to remake her spell since her— OH! Probably! Now that I think about it! Because they didn’t have an understanding of light, but Blackvoid did! Oh wow! Mystery solved!”

Erick smiled; ‘Trap Light’ was already taken, which was why his spell ended up being called something else. No wonder Phagar had been weird, and Rozeta’s sign off message had been strange. Then, he looked up [Trap Light].

 

 

“That is certainly neither [Blackvoid], or [Luminous Trap],” Erick said.

Kiri said, “Certainly not! [Trap Light] is basically worthless. [Blackvoid] was fantastic, though. Tulamana Blackvoid churned out hundreds of thousands of gems, bracelets, everything, each of them for Plus-50 to Plus-150 of whatever. And the best part was, was that nobody knew how she did it! Because her spell lasted a hundred days, and then the item began to degrade, very rapidly, because she didn’t use gems. She climbed to the top of the enchanting world, with glasswork!” Kiri laughed, then said, “She was a glassworker, by trade! A sculptor and a bottle maker. She never enchanted anything until she made her [Blackvoid]. When that happened, she made glass, briefly, into one of the most studied items in the world.

“Her glasswork was widely considered trash by most of the world, but that was probably just jealousy writing history. She pissed off a lot of people. She was a savant with light, though. Her wardlight sculptures are masterpieces. Some of them still exist, in some parts of the world. Some of her rings still exist, too; they’re enchanted with permanent lightmasks, but the [Blackvoid] wore off long ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some examples of her work at Oceanside. She and the Headmaster were tight friends, until Blackvoid was assassinated by Shades.” Kiri said, “The Headmaster even wrote a biography about Tulamana Blackvoid, after her death, but it’s widely considered propaganda in her favor. Other immortals made their thoughts on Blackvoid’s life choices very well known.”

“Thank you, Kiri.” Erick said, “That was… a lot. I didn’t know any of that.”

Kiri waved him off, saying, “It’s trivia; nothing more.” She added, “But… I guess it works better than your silver coating?” She vacillated, “But it’ll only last a hundred days, and it’s probably prone to internal interference if you get subjected to a lightward. That was one of Blackvoid’s work’s main downfalls. Exposure to exterior light fields killed her gems until— OH!” Kiri suddenly turned serious, as she said, “I know it’s not my place, but I would like to create her— Ah. No. Um.” She calmed, saying, “You should invent the reflective ward she created to combat that weakness. [Perfect Mirror]. You cast [Luminous Void] on the gem, then you maskward it, then you [Perfect Mirror] it. You won’t be able to renew the [Luminous Void] while [Perfect Mirror] is active, but it does get rid of the weakness of contaminating the void.”

“That’s really good, Kiri.” Erick said, “You invent it, I’ll copy from you, and that’ll be good enough. You can have the points. You came up with the spell.”

“No.” Kiri said, “I even feel bad that I got [Hermetic Seal] from you.”

“I insist. Don’t argue. Make the spell, and let me see you cast it, and that’s good enough for me.” Erick asked, “Do you know why the Shades assassinated her?”

Kiri smiled softly, as she looked down at nothing in particular. When she looked back up, she said, “Thank you.”

Erick waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Then I won’t.” Kiri said, “Anyway. Uh. Blackvoid caught the Shades’ attention and didn’t want to play their games. So they killed her. I don’t think you have that problem.”

He frowned, as he looked away. He said, “I guess not.” He lost his frown, and gestured to Kiri’s piles of blanks, and her green lightwards, asking, “Want some void diamonds to experiment with? How’s your— Oh. It’s all green?”

A thought came to Erick, quickly, and full of fright. Justine Erholme had demonstrated the colors of Constitution and Intelligence to Erick already. If green was a color of one of the new Stats…

Erick said, “I know I told you what Justine showed me; Constitution is sunshine yellow but Intelligence is near-ultraviolet. If some green color is a new Stat, then it’s either Charisma, or Dexterity, or nothing.” He looked to Kiri, worried, and said, “The Mind Mages have kill orders for Charisma users.”

Kiri nodded, all serious like. “I know. Poi already warned me. I’ve already been sworn to secrecy, but I can tell you that if my experiment works, I will gain the backing of a major organization. The Mind Mages are very interested in knowing more about Charisma in a controlled setting.” She said, “You have Oceanside and Spur, but I need something, too, and the Mind Mages are… They’re ruthless and hidden, but they’re also rather good people. Every one I ever met.” She added, “If I end up with Dexterity, then that’s fine, too. The ‘nothing’ would be troubling just for how much time I’ve spent on this, but it is what it is.”

“… Okay.” Erick didn’t know what to think about that, at first, but it sounded… good? He said, “That’s good, right? Let’s hope for Charisma?”

“I’m still staying here,” Kiri said, suddenly. “This is not me running away, but instead ensuring my safety along multiple avenues. I meant to tell you sooner, but… I didn’t know how to tell you. This happened… A while ago. The decision to pursue this option with the Mind Mages, I mean.”

“Kiri.” Erick spoke softly, saying, “That’s fine. Everyone needs their own life. You’re not an apprentice forever, are you?”

“Maybe so, but I’d like to continue bothering you for magic lessons for decades.”

A swell of quiet joy expanded in Erick’s chest. “Good. I’m glad.” He rapidly added, “And I’m glad you have a plan, too! Feels like I’m just rushing from unexpected fire to unexpected fire.”

Kiri grinned, as she said, “There are lots of fires out there that could use some rain.” She enthusiastically added, “And yes!” She pushed her box of blank diamond spheres at him, saying, “I want a whole box of gems turned into [Luminous Trap]s!”

Erick chuckled, as he took the box into one hand and tapped his other fingers across the contents, turning blank gems to black gems, as he asked, “I’ve got Ophiels pathing toward Killtree right now for some [Weather Control] horde kills in an hour. They’re too low level for you, right?”

Kiri nodded, saying, “I’m level 66 right now. Killing spiders would not gain me anything, but I would love to help, if you wish for help.”

“No need, then. Work on whatever you want, and also that reflective spell.” Erick finished tapping through most of the diamonds, turning a small part of the world into an optical void. He set the box back on her workbench, saying, “I am working on some crowns of plus 200 or 250 Willpower. Maybe I can pump it even higher than that, but the point is, I’m considering keeping one or two such crowns on hand for use in remote monster hunts. You’re more than welcome to use the ones I make, or even to make your own, when you hunt monsters for Mog, or whenever necessary.”

Kiri’s eyes glittered green, as she said, “That would be… Most wonderful.” She got a far off look, as she said, “I could actually cast some of my spells if I had— Ha! 250 more Willpower. Damn, that is a lot.” She looked to Erick. “The spells I messed up, I mean. I could actually cast them.”

Erick said, “Me too.”

 

– – – –

 

Under grey skies lay a land of streets, squat stone towers, and houses made of wood where every other wooden plank was missing. Some of the buildings were better made than others, but absolutely all of it was covered in mud, with roads that might have been solid in previous centuries, but were now not even fit for pigs to wallow within. And yet, people walked, and talked, and lived in this place, this northernmost Sovereign City of Killtree.

Jane’s description of the place had been too kind, even with the use of such descriptive phrases as ‘diarrhea shithole’ and ‘unending hive of scum and villainy’.

Ophiel hung out to the north of the city, high in the overcast sky, kilometers away from the obvious stench of hammered down humanity and the dilapidated structures they lived in, and yet, Erick could still almost smell the detritus of a strangled society. He certainly saw the problems, though.

Erick spoke through his [Familiar], asking, “What the FUCK is wrong with you people? [Stoneshape] is right there! One fucking point. You can buy it your very first godsdamned level.”

A fully covered black-clad ninja, for that’s all she could have possibly been, stood on a hovering platform nearby, and winced. Her name was ‘Elite Redwood’, but she was not one of the Headmaster’s Elites. That was one of the first things Erick had asked, when she showed up in the sky next to Ophiel and introduced herself, not ten minutes ago.

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The other person was a man in full, off-white plate [Conjured Armor], who stood on his own off-white hovering platform. He was Guildmaster Rohn of the local Adventurer’s Guild chapter. Erick had no opinion about the ninja, but he certainly felt that the Guildmaster, of the international Adventurer’s Guild, should have at least felt bad about the state of his city.

The Guildmaster did not wince at Erick’s words, he merely stated, “We do not ask for your judgments, only for your ability to halt the horde, in accordance with bargains of trade laid down long ago with your Headmaster.”

Erick ignored the representatives of Killtree for the rest of the event.

Crafted wind set the grey sky tumbling to the ground, where burning spheres of land sent breezes back upward. Clouds churned, turning dark, as lightning flashed through the heavens, revealing the horde hidden above, on track to assault Killtree. The spiders were not expecting such a sudden change of weather, though. They also weren’t expecting thick air to pull their liquid insides to their outsides, killing every spider large enough to possibly affect what was to come.

Long, airy threads and desiccated corpses caught on each other, while smaller spiders clung on for dear life, as the horde fell to its churning, fiery tornado fate. Erick had gotten much better at this since that first spider horde tried to drop on Kal’Duresh.

Erick set a [Cascade Imaging] down on the ground, in the stone courtyard of the Adventurer’s Guild, set to search for more Ballooning Spiders. Guildmaster Rohn said nothing about that, but he did vacate the field, and Erick did see him tracking down spiders already in the city. Maybe he wasn’t a totally worthless Guildmaster.

Erick almost offered to [Withering] the city, but he was absolutely sure that the Guildmaster and the Elite would say yes, and Erick would end up killing just as many monsters and fully fledged cannibals as he would people suffering from intestinal rads. Maybe ending dozens of hidden threats was worth the bloody cost of such an outcome, but Erick wasn’t willing to pay that cost. No fucking way.

Erick briefly vacated the field, traveling back through strung out Ophiel connections, landing all the way back in his library, in Spur. He shivered in his chair, feeling terrible and not quite knowing what to do about the new problems appearing in Killtree, because of his actions.

Kiri looked up from her book. “Problems?”

“Oh my gods! There are so many.” Erick said, “I put down this imaging down below, of course. And now these adventurers in the local guild just tore through a house, looking for one of the spiders they saw on the map. There’s blood on the streets, Kiri. What the FUCK is wrong with these people’s governors?”

“The Cities are like that.” Kiri frowned, saying, “You always hear of some good nobles gaining a foothold of decent control, sometimes, but then the mob rises up and kills those kinds of people. They have a very strong culture of self governance, and a deep hatred of any and all control, even the kind that is good for them all.”

Erick shivered again. “That’s one way to put it.”

He turned his attention back to the horde, tumbling down from the lightning filled sky, into burning charnel pits. More Ophiels added more fire and more lightning. Ending a threat like the Ballooning Spiders made Erick feel slightly better than how he was feeling, but not much.

 

– – – –

 

After dinner, and while the spiders were mostly dealt with, Erick left a hundred Jewels and a few Ophiel in the area, to move the mess into piles of wealth, while he went back to his tower. After recasting the obscuring [Ward] on the large, southern window, he got out his octahedral gem.

He sorely missed being able to look up stuff on the internet, to figure out all of what he was doing, and trying to do, but the purpose of the octahedral diamond shape he had carved from the raw, jumbled octahedral diamond, was to see if carving on perfect, molecular planes, would cause manalight to stabilize better within the diamond. He was absolutely sure that he was missing some deeper understanding of why the diamonds grew like they did, but his gem carving books had not done much better with the deeper understandings, and so, he just [Duplicate]d his octahedron a few times, creating five perfect copies of his perfect gem.

He cast Willpower-Ultramarine lightmasks onto each individual gem, clipping the entire surface, with a centimeter to spare. He smiled. The octahedrons resembled deep blue sapphires. They were kinda pretty. The next casts turned each gem into a light devouring void.

Light layered down around Erick’s form, as he conjured his armor, but left a fingertip exposed. He pressed that exposed finger to the first gems, and began experimenting.

An hour later, Erick had exploded one gem, overloaded another into breaking after one minute, [Duplicate]d many more blanks and layered them with the proper spells, and finally, after too many failures, but not nearly as many as some people would have to suffer if they wanted to achieve the same success, Erick had created a rather good crown.

Wrought-class dark iron, pulled and shaped by magic, formed a heavy circlet, laden with three, eye-sized blue voids. Further metal formed small shields behind the gems, in the hopes that if the gems exploded, it would not kill the wearer, while smaller whorls of utilitarian metal held the gems into a proper resonance, as the whole thing worked together to create a magical item with a staggering amount of power.

The first iteration of the crown had exploded after he put it on, but Erick had been more surprised than hurt. He had needed a haircut anyway; he’d get one tomorrow when he went to the Registrar to get another Class Ability.

This second crown had lasted ten minutes already, so maybe it was okay?

Erick’s rings were already off, so he put the crown on his unarmored head.

The world went sideways for a brief moment, as Stat sickness caused his left eye to turn right and his right eye to turn left and up. He winced, closing his eyes, focusing on the darkness, centering himself with Meditation even though he was still in the Restful air of the house.

When the worst of it was over, he opened his eyes. The world was now more upright, but it was still doubled, as his eyes had trouble coming to terms with each other. Erick grabbed the rod of [Treat Wounds] and tapped himself. Three seconds later, he started to feel better, as his eyes adjusted, and the world straightened.

He checked his Status.