Karl carefully opened the book and looked at the first page. The letters were unfamiliar, but the more that he looked at them, the more sense they made.
He assud that the system would do all of the translating for him, the way that it did with spoken languages. So he simply waited, and examined the first page until it began to make sense.
It didn't.
At least, not in any aningful way. But most of the language was based on Runic, so Karl was slowly able to make out two thirds of what he assud that it was saying, and then guess at the rest.
"Can you read that?" One of the clerics asked as Karl flipped to the second page.
"Mostly. It's not a language that I would claim to know, and I get the feeling that I am missing a huge amount of context to the words as I read them. But I can follow the descriptions well enough to at least tell what it is talking about.
Now, when we get to the technical parts, that may be much more difficult. As I said, I am missing a lot of context, so as I read through the more detailed sections, I'm going to miss even more."
The first few pages were mostly just an introduction, and a crude glossary, as if the writer had assud there would be no need to flip through the book to find a particular section, and that the reader would simply read it cover to cover until it was morized.
That might be possible. That was how the mine bosses wanted them to treat the company handbook. But a professional tradesman wouldn't be quite as arrogant, Karl assud.
[For a true Dwarven Master Smith, the quality of their alloys and forging process is the key to everything. But the sa cannot be said for a Dwarven Runemaster. While a runic Dwarven weapon will always be a vast improvent on the original, greater relative gains can co from weapons that are further from the peak of perfection.
As long as it lasts, the Runic inscription will be just as effective on a low-quality blade as a master crafted one. However, it is worth noting that a poor quality blade, or an inferior blend of alloy will simply shatter if too much power is directed through it by a Runic Array.]
None of that was a shock to Karl.
What did shock Karl was the fact that it was imdiately followed by a list of alloys by quality for Runic Weapon making, due to their compatibility with high mana flows.
Of all the things that he had expected it to say, he had not expected the author to put pure silver near the top, just under Mythril and a few alloys that Karl had never heard of.
What did shock Karl was the fact that it was imdiately followed by a list of alloys by quality for Runic Weapon making, due to their compatibility with high mana flows.
Of all the things that he had expected it to say, he had not expected the author to put pure silver near the top, just under Mythril and a few alloys that Karl had never heard of.
Obviously, it was a lousy tal for making weapons on its own, as it was soft and wouldn't hold an edge. But with Runes, that could be overco, while the high mana capacity and accessibility made it more viable than any of the complex alloys on the list.
Karl made notes as he translated, in hopes that he would be able to go over them later and glean so additional anings that he had missed the first ti that he read through the book.
Karl flipped the page, and found that the foreword to the novel was only that one page long. As soon as the introduction of the best tals was over, the author dove straight into the important parts of how to use the craft to improve your work.
[Now, if you are short of a proper Dwarven forge, as may be the case while travelling, you will need to know these basics to make the tools of the less advanced species viable for use.] The next page began, before being filled with scrawling and scattered Runic symbol clusters in various shapes for different objects.
They all appeared to be designed to enhance the strength and durability of tal objects, but the author had not just included the runes for strengthening.
That seed curious, so Karl wrote out the Runes, separated into their component parts, and started trying to decipher what they all ant, and what part they played in the overall inscription.
It was not going to be an easy task, Karl realized. Instead of using a spell effect as the building blocks of his work, with the strengthening layered over top, the Dwarf had used a paragraph - long rant about how humans couldn't tell impurities from rare alloys. Then it went on about how they were too frail to stand next to a forge long enough to heat tal for shaping, and too poor to afford oil for tempering.
"What does it all say?" The cleric asked.
"It appears that the dwarf who wrote this was not a particular fan of the other races' crafting. It's an entire rant about how the humans can't make a decent blade, with a strengthening effect tacked on top."
The Cleric looked confused by what he ant, so Karl went and grabbed a pair of knives from the breakfast cart. It took him the better part of five minutes to write out the runes on the butter knives with a fine tip marker, but the clerics simply remained silent and waited for him to finish before they asked any more questions.
"See this? That's the base tal strengthening rune group. This one is what the book recomnded to strengthen a human made blade. I don't know if there is actually any difference in the effects between the two." Karl explained, gesturing between the knife with a simple rune on the handle, and the one that was entirely decorated.
The cleric shrugged, then activated the runes with a gentle flow of mana.
"See what it takes to bend them. The kitchen will forgive us a few damaged butter knives." He suggested.
"The second one sure is pretty, though." One of the other clerics noted.
"Yes, gorgeous Rune work. I can see why they would have done it that way. Even if it provided a marginal or negligible increase, it is much more pleasing to look at, and the Dwarves were known to be vain about their handiwork."
Karl picked up the simple strengthening rune marked blade, and forcibly bent it in his hands.
Then he repeated the process as the Clerics sighed in regret at the loss.
Strangely, the second blade did appear to be significantly stronger, despite not having any other activation runes in the inscription.
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