Karl took a seat, and then looked up and saw a writing desk suspended in a glass orb above them. It was covered in incredibly ancient magical runes, and from what Karl could see, it was intended to make all the materials you needed to create a Skill Book while working at it.
That was brilliant.
Force Slam wasn’t too hard to create, at least for Karl. But his skill wasn’t [Inscription], it was [Skill Book], and it had far fewer conditions for creation, but far stricter ones on what books he could make.
So, he got out suitable ink from Remi’s supply stash of plant extracts, and grabbed a stack of paper from the middle of the table.
"On the count of three, you may begin." The Demoness announced.
Karl noticed that she wasn’t participating, she was the store staff serving as referee for the event. He should have known that a Wrath Demon was not suited to be an Inscriptionist.
The first ti that the pen dripped and ruined a page with an ink blot, they would lose it.
Karl quickly began to write out the small booklet that was [Force Slam], and then sent a surge of mana through the papers with [Skill Book] to form the cover and activate the to.
"Finished." He spoke quietly, and looked up from his work.
One of the others was already finished, and Karl smiled as he saw [Rend] on the table in front of them.
"You only win if you finish in an hour." The dragonkin mouthed silently.
So that was the trick. He was wagering that anyone who picked a skill book more complex and valuable than Rend would not finish on ti, and would therefore lose by default.
Karl checked his watch. He had taken nearly forty minutes just to write out [Force Slam]. If he had chosen anything more difficult, he really might have gone over.
They sat silently, browsing the magazines on the table as the others worked.
When the last pen was lifted, the hour was long past, and the last few to finish were more than ten minutes past the tir. But nobody stopped them, as the contest was a ’winner take all’ format, and nobody needed a half finished skill book.
They had all chosen basic warrior and mage skills. Cleave, Rend, Lightning Bolt, Magic Armour, and a copy of [Stomp] that must have had an error sowhere, as it failed to activate.
The blue dragon ca out from the sitting area, where he had been waiting with Dana.
"Excellent work, everyone. We will fix the error in Stomp for the winner. Now, let’s see what the pricing chart says." He announced.
"We have one copy of Magic Armour that was finished over the ti limit, as well as Stomp, which has failed to activate. So, in third place, we have Rend. Then Lightning Bolt and Magic Armour tied in value, with Lightning Bolt being completed first.
However, our winner for this round is [Force Slam], which is not currently in the store’s inventory.
The spell is part of the druid arsenal under certain skill builds. But I have no record of it having ever passed through our stock." He announced.
The other Inscriptionists cheered, and an older dragonkin rushed out to begin flipping through the Stomp book, looking for the error.
They cast so sort of spell that erased a portion of the page, and then wrote a new paragraph. That let the book successfully complete, and the final Skill Book ford.
"Now, would the winner like to keep his winnings? Or perhaps trade them for store credit?" The blue dragon asked.
It didn’t take a genius to see that he was hoping for store credit as an answer.
"Dana, did you find anything good?" Karl asked.
She nodded. "I did. I found a whole collection of Mystic Cooking cookbooks for Lotus, and an Alchemy book for Remi."
The shopkeeper looked a bit sheepish. "As it happens, her advancent through multiple mage related classes has given her a much larger repertoire of skills than our shop stocks."
Karl politely didn’t ntion that she could make skill books just as easily as he could.
That wasn’t information that anyone else knew, outside the core of the Darklight Host. So, if it could be kept secret, he wouldn’t have to worry about people bothering Dana about it.
"That is a pretty impressive haul. Finding just one new to is difficult enough, but to find them for two different specialties, this truly is the best stocked shop around.
Shopkeeper, I will trade my winnings for store credit. It should cover our purchases here today, and anything left over we will save for the next ti a Guild mber needs a new skill." Karl replied.
"That is excellent news. A new spell for the shop is a huge accomplishnt. To prevent unfairness, winners have to sit out the next round. But you are welco to peruse our shelves.
Not everything is a Skill book. We also have fiction, history, theory, education and many other books available." He offered.
"Oh, that is a good idea. Our Guild Library is pretty good, but I bet that we don’t have so of these. Now that we’ve got Sapphire looking after it, we should work on expanding the inventory." Karl agreed.
Even if her presence was giving the Nobles of Drodh heart palpitations.
"The Mythic Librarian Sapphire?" The blue dragon in charge of the shop asked.
Karl nodded. "She joined our Guild recently, after accepting a trade skill. She is currently at our Drodh Guild House, doing inventory on the Guild Library there. We loaded it with surplus books from a historic bookstore, and the variety is sowhat unusual."
As were the notes written in so of the educational tos.
Most of them were good advice, but according to the dragon, so of the students making the notes had clearly been failing their classes, and it was better for everyone if the books were scrubbed of bad advice before anyone else read them.
But Mick said that she spent most of her ti with a romance book in one hand as she sorted through educational tos using a magical skill.
User Comments
0 comments from readers