“Pen, what did you get for level four?” Circe sat down next to Penelope.
Penelope looked up from the circle she’d been drawing on the stone floor. The others were gathered around Patrick, who was doing his best to cook meat without a reliable flame. Judah was doing his best to keep the heat even, but he wasn’t able to control the fireball for long before it either exploded or winked out.
“Blink.” Penelope turned back to her drawing. She’d thought about getting
“Cool…” Circe poked at the circle. “Whatcha doing?”
“Don’t touch that, please.” Penelope fixed the smudged line. “I’m trying to make an enchanting circle to see if I can’t put enchantments on gear.”
“You can do that?” Circe raised an eyebrow.
“You could in the game, but that was just telling the DM what you wanted to do and then paying the material cost.” Penelope bit her lip. "I’m pretty sure it’s going to be more complicated in real life.”
“And yet you know exactly how to do it…” Jeru sighed. “Honestly, watching you pretend to be incompetent is painful.”
Would you be quiet. Penelope finished the circle, then fished a mana potion out of her pocket.
“Is this because you didn’t get the water-making spell you wanted?” Circe put her hand on Penelope’s shoulder. “You know no one blames you for that.”
“It’s not about that.” Penelope sighed as she pulled off the regular cloth hood she was wearing and threw it into the middle of the circle. “I’m just trying to find a way to give us our best chance of surviving.” She pointed at squares full of monsters behind her. “Things have to get more difficult and if we only have access to the gear that they drop for us, then we’re limited on how strong we can become.”
“So could you make my bow more powerful?” Circe touched the weapon lying beside her.
“I need to see if this works, then I’ll try.” Penelope closed her eyes and gathered mana into the circle.
“Catch twenty-two.” Jeru chimed into her mind. “If you succeed the first time, people are going to get suspicious, but if you fail, they’re not going to want to waste the mana potions for you to try again.”
Beginner’s luck. Penelope mentally shooed the blue man away. I can fail the second time; that way I have a proof of concept and show that I’m still learning.
“Intentionally failing.” Jeru laughed. “I like it.”
Good, now be quiet so I can focus.
“Seriously? You could do this in your sleep.” Jeru clicked his tongue. “You can’t sell yourself short with me.”
Just be quiet, please. Penelope filled the circle with enough mana, then opened her eyes and unstoppered the vial of blue fluid. She slowly poured it on the outer ring, keeping Magic as the stat that she focused on sending into the hood. It didn’t take long for her to drain the vial, and a few moments later, the light inside the circle faded, leaving her with a cloth hood that would give her +1 Magic.
“That was so cool!” Circe put her bow in the middle of the circle. “Do mine next!”
“Why don’t we try it with something that we can afford to lose?” Penelope pointed at the pile of plain gear. “All you’ve got is a ring that gives you Speed, so why don’t you get me something leather from that pile and I’ll try it again?”
“Right! I’ll be right back!” Circe scrambled to her feet, then took off towards the piles of unworn gear.
“You’re going to crush her heart when you break whatever she brings back.” Jeru shook his head. “Harsh.”
You’re the one who told me that I need to act like I’m figuring this out. Penelope grumbled. I’ll break one every so often to make it seem like I don’t have it mastered and eventually, I’ll stop breaking items.
“Well, you’ve got an audience now.” Jeru gestured at Ula and Eldri, who were following Circe back to the circle.
“See!” Circe pointed at the gray hood in Penelope’s hands. “I told you she could make new gear!”
Ula walked over to Penelope and picked up the hood, turning the newly enchanted item over in her hand while she inspected it. “You made this?”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“I enchanted it.” Penelope held up the empty vial. “I was curious if it would work and I didn’t think anyone would mind if I used one of my mana potions to try.”
“And you’re sure this is permanent?” Ula handed the hood to Eldri, then turned her attention back to Penelope.
“It doesn’t say anything about it being a temporary buff like when Eldri buffs one of us.” Penelope shrugged. “So I think it’s permanent.”
“If so, this will help us a lot.” Ula took the hood back from Eldri and handed it back to Penelope. “Can you show Eldri how to do it?”
“I…” Penelope swallowed. She hadn’t considered that anyone but Judah might want to learn enchanting and he’d been following Nina around whenever they weren’t fighting or he wasn’t providing a flame for Patrick to cook with. “I can try. I’m not sure I completely understand it myself.”
“Just do what you can and don’t waste all of our potions.” Ula nodded at the other two women. “I’m going to see if I can’t help Patrick figure out the distiller.”
“That…” Penelope shook her head. I really need to get water so he’ll stop playing with that.
Patrick had decided that if they didn’t have water, he could drain the green blood from the monsters into a makeshift pot made from one of the Shadow Knight’s helmets. He’d used carapace to plug up all the holes, then used monster guts as a tube out of a hole in the carapace pot lid to let the condensation drip into a basin made out of carapace. The entire setup required Judah to apply constant heat, which took away from him cooking, so they’d paused the project for now.
While the idea had merit, the guts weren’t exactly clean, which meant the water that they harvested was tainted. Drinking it would give them an upset stomach, which put the emphasis on why she needed to get them drinkable water before the two men went back to the project.
Too much to do. Penelope grumbled as she looked at Circe. “You grabbed something?”
“Gloves.” The brunette threw a pair of brown leather gloves into the middle of the circle.
“Okay…” Penelope pulled out a mana potion. She turned to Eldri. “So what I did was, I drew this outer circle, then a smaller one in the middle.” She pointed at the circles with her finger. “Then I drew three circles with a diameter from the outer edge of the middle circle to the outer circle and positioned them equal distances apart.”
“I see that.” Eldri nodded. “Why?”
“I need to get mana from the outer circle to the inner circle.” Penelope pointed at the circles. “When I was playing around with mana in just a single circle, I couldn’t apply it evenly and when I used only a smaller circle in the middle, I couldn’t control how much mana I was putting into the inner circle.”
“So why three circles to connect the inner and outer circle?” Eldri tilted her head.
“Rule of three?” Penelope shrugged. “Most things seem to come in threes, so I thought to try that first and it worked.” She thought back to Cirdor’s lessons and remembered the formula for why three was more optimal than two or four, but didn’t feel like a lesson on the math behind enchanting circles would help her illusion of fumbling her way through it.
“Okay, so do I need to make my own circle or can I use yours?” Eldri pointed at the gloves in the middle of the enchanting circle.
“Um, I guess you can try mine.” Penelope moved away from the circle to give the older woman some room. “I tried not to push the mana into the hood too fast and kept my mind focused on wanting to add the Magic stat to it.”
Eldri pulled back her black hair and tied it off with a string, then knelt down in front of the circle and put both of her hands on the outer circle. “Like this?”
“Right, now you need to build up mana in your hands, like when you begin to cast a spell, but you don’t want to think about an actual spell, just the mana.” Penelope eyed the older woman. What are the odds she gets this right the first time?
“Usually you’re the enchanter of the main group. I forget when the last time I bothered keeping up with who the other enchanters were outside of the locals.” Jeru shrugged. “But she’s a Buffer and she’s been paying attention to how her spells work while buffing the others, so I’d say she’s got a decent chance of it working.”
So much for us not making this look easy. Penelope smiled at the other woman. But that’ll take a lot of focus off of me if Eldri can handle most of the enchanting in the beginning.
Instead of soft, blue light, a purple glow filled the outer ring. The light moved much slower than when Penelope did it and at times, it shrank away from places it had already filled. After a few minutes, Eldri had turned all of the enchanting rings purple.
“Alright now.” Penelope pulled out a health potion, twisted off the top, and offered it to Eldri. “These are for Circe, so we want Speed to be the stat you focus on.”
“Why not a mana potion?” Eldri took the vial of red liquid.
“Mana potions for magical stats, healing potions for physical ones.” Penelope tried to sound as confident as she could. A mana potion would have worked, but she couldn’t use a healing potion to give something the Magic stat or to give it a passive, spell, or skill.
“And I just pour it on?” Eldri pointed at the gloves.
“You have to focus on your mana absorbing the liquid, converting it to Speed, and then infusing the gloves.” Penelope bit her lip. “If you do it too fast, the liquid won’t have enough mana to stick. If you do it too slow, the enchantment will fade.” She noticed the curious looks on Circe and Eldri’s faces. “That’s what the DM would tell us if we rolled too high or too low to see if we were successful.”
“What happens if it’s not successful?” Circe swallowed.
“Depends on your level. With new characters the item usually broke.” Penelope shrugged.
“No pressure.” Eldri took a deep breath, then started pouring out the healing potion onto the gloves.
The pour was uneven, with Eldri slowing down how fast she poured out the potion if the liquid wasn’t absorbing her mana fast enough, then pouring faster when the gloves were taking all the liquid as fast as it entered the circle. It didn’t take long for the potion to run out, and then the rest of the mana filled the gloves. The glow around the gloves changed from purple to orange, then faded.
“Well, it sort of worked.” Penelope shook her head. “You were able to enchant the gloves, but you got Defense instead of Speed.”
“Frederica can wear these!” Circe snatched up the gloves. “I’ll go get another pair!”
The two women watched the excited brunette dash over to the other group.
“Do you want to try the next one?” Eldri gestured at the circle.
“I think I’ll let you keep trying, if you want to.” Penelope gave the older woman a smile. “I’m going to see if I can’t figure out how to change the element of my spells and get us some water.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Eldri nodded. “How many potions do you think I should use?”
“As long as you’re succeeding, I’d say most of them.” Penelope glanced over at the squares of monsters behind them. “We’ve got a lot more where those came from.”
Rating, Review, Follow, Favorite, or Comment does wonders to boost my morale. If you want to help support my writing or check out advanced chapters, head over to my .
RR Writer's Guild