98 - Book 2: Chapter 35: Combinatorics

98 - Book 2: Chapter 35: Combinatorics

"That's... a good thing, right?" Vex wasn't sure how to phrase his question, exactly, but Misa looked more tense than he would have expected for such a revelation.

"It's not that it going up is a problem," Misa said, but she looked frustrated anyway; her brows furrowing as she spoke. "It's that I don't know what's causing it to go up and down like this, and my my family relies on this. My whole village. It's linked directly to me, and I don't even get a notification when it happens."

"That means something happened to raise it, though," Vex said. "We know that, now. It's more than we knew before. We can figure out what we did... it's probably related to the magic, right?"

"Maybe," Misa grunted. She didn't look too much happier. "We'd have to keep testing. I don't know when this happened, so it could have been from something back in Teque."

"I may be able to fix the notification problem," Derivan said. Misa blinked once, turning her gaze to him and staring, and even Vex looked at Derivan in askance; the armor tilted his head slightly, as if he was confused by the stares being directed at him. "That is the purpose of Patch, is it not? Or it appears to be. Patch allows me to fix issues with the system. I do not know how to use it yet, but with enough practice..."

"Are you sure you can do that?" Misa asked.

"Not sure," Derivan admitted. "But it should be possible."

"We'd be able to change so much, if Patch is able to do what you think," Sev muttered out loud. He shook his head, looking contemplative. "It can't be that easy."

"It likely will not be. But I am willing to try."

"We should work on figuring out what Patch can do," Sev decided. "I mean, we were going to do that anyway, I guess, but we can put together some ideas. Figure out a way for you to train the stat. Maybe smaller problems you can fix?"

"At the moment, the stat appears to let me sense aspects of the system, and influence them in some small way," Derivan said. "But it is rather like wielding a hammer when a smaller tool would do a better job imprecise, and difficult to handle."

"So we need a small problem for you to handle?" Misa frowned. "We know the system has a dozen little errors in it, but..."

"Rather," Derivan said. "We need a problem that does not require an intricate solution; something I can hammer back into place, so to speak."

"I can't think of anything at the moment." Misa glanced around to everyone else. "You guys got anything?"

"We don't have a reference point for errors," Vex said. "The best we can do is wait for the next time an error shows up, and see what it looks like for Derivan."

"The good news is that at the rate we encounter errors, that shouldn't take long at all," Sev said, and a light scattering of chuckles broke the tension in the caravan.

"Any chance we'll encounter any with the next quest?" Misa asked. "You said it was a short one that we should do before we go to Elyra proper, right?"

"It should be a diversion of a couple of hours at most." Sev glanced at the paper he held in his hands, wincing a little bit. "It's another one of those quests a lot of adventurers don't pick up because it's too easy. Need to help someone pick some of her vegetables."

"And... Why do we need to help someone pick their vegetables, again?" Misa gave Sev a bemused stare. Sev shrugged.

"They're magic," he said. "Apparently they're kind of hard to harvest."

"You could've just said she needed help harvesting magical reagents."

"Calling them vegetables was funnier."

"He's got you there," Vex said, grinning a little bit, and Misa rolled her eyes.

"Of the four of us," she grumbled, "I would've expected you to care most about being accurate with terminology."

"I do!" Vex protested. Frustrated as she was, Misa still managed a slight smile at that, and the caravan lapsed into another small silence.

"Do you have a plan for discovering more glyphs?" Derivan asked after a moment passed Vex looked over at him.

"Vex," Misa said, a touch of fond exasperation in her tone, and Vex squeaked.

"I'll be more careful next time!" he said. "I got excited."

And he was still excited, because he had another confirmed spell he could look at with his Sign, and he did, taking down his notes as he did so.

Glyph of Letterlight

A combination of the glyphs of Light and Communication, the glyph of Letterlight represents the desire to share meaning through the visual mediums of art.

This glyph is capable of one-way transmission of thoughts, concepts and ideas to any being that comes in contact with the light emitted from it.

Ah. That made sense.

Vex hadn't been particularly prepared for the spell, and so the only thought he'd put into it while the spell was casting was that he hoped it worked; the thought had been easy enough to dismiss, though each of the three others did admit they felt something along those lines when Vex had cast his spell.

"Lotta applications for that spell," Misa said with a low whistle when Vex described what it did. "As long as you can direct that light."

"It may be worth experimenting with," Derivan agreed.

"No slivers for that combination, though," Vex noted, looking a little bit worried. "What if I can't get any more?"

"You didn't give all your slivers to Noram, did you?" Misa asked.

"No," Vex said; he rummaged around in his tailpouch, trying to find the one sliver he'd kept for himself. "But I was hoping we'd be able to get more now that we know how magic works..."

He paused.

His fingers had brushed against the sliver in his tailpouch, and the system had responded.

[Unknown Shard] [Grade: Unknown]

Item description still processing.

"...The system recognizes the slivers, now," Vex said slowly, staring at the box. He didn't know how he felt about it. For some reason, he felt a strange, creeping dread.

"Does it tell you what it is?" Derivan asked.

"No. It says it's still processing." Vex fidgeted. "But this does mean that the system is actively studying the slivers... I'm worried about what will happen when it's done."

"Next time Anton contacts us," Misa suggested. "You should ask about glyphs for making this trip faster. Just in case."

"Was there any change in integrity?" Vex asked. The half-orc glanced at her status and sighed.

"Too small for now, if there was anything," she said. "But let me know the next time you work on this magic, and I'll keep an eye on it."

Vex nodded. "I need to know what other base glyphs there are," he said, his tone complative. He was always excited about new magic, of course, but this was something new, and here he was just starting to get a glimpse at it...

He wanted to learn more.

And it would help him with his family in Elyra, too, he hoped.