Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

to look over the wall of the castle. And it’s fast, too: When it was moving, it could fight like a person in armor. A three-hundred-foot-tall person.”

Kythias’ eyes bugged a little. “I see.”

“I don’t know if you have any Mercurion books here that mention them, but if so, we’ll look at those as well.” I gestured to the other shelves.

“You know, we don’t actually have many books by Mercurions: mostly because they guard their knowledge the way a provincial lord guards his virgin daughter. Did you know that the Zaunt clans train spies whose only mission is to recover lost knowledge? They regularly assassinate people for books over there.” Kythias stopped in front of a huge wooden-backed tome that was almost the size of his torso. “As for sandworms, there may be some mention of them in Shalid bestiaries, and books about the Great Calamity. The Drachan Wars brought the dominion of the cat-people to an abrupt and tragic end. If I’m remembering my history right, the sandworms were part of that decline.”

“In what sense?” I crossed my arms, watching Kythias stagger over to the cart and lay the ancient book down as gently as he was able to.

“There is a Meewfolk myth concerning how the sandworms ate the jungle and turned it into desert. When you have a story as specific as that, then generally there’s a grain of truth to it.” He went back to fetch another tome. “I’m sure we have a bestiary that can tell you more. I’ll get that while you set up these books for study. One of these books is a transcription by the Master of the Archives, but the other one is in Old Period Mau.”

“That’s fine,” Rin said. “I took up Translation and Codebreaking skills. I can figure out most languages if I have enough of the script, plus some translation notes.”

“Good. Master may have scribed some notes into the margins that you can use.” Kythias said. “Assuming your Codebreaking skill is in the Intermediate levels, that is.”

I rubbed my hands in anticipation of being absolutely worthless in anything to do with translation or code. “Rin, you used that ability to decipher the Old Agatic script in the Rose Vault. It was hella useful.”

“It is! I’m so glad I picked up the Mystic Weaponeer Advanced Path.” Rin went over to the first book and cracked the cover. “I was worried it would just be all about bombs and things, but it has four trees, and only one of them is about explosives and projectiles. One tree, Arcane Innovation, has some really cool archeology abilities intended for this exact kind of work. The Drachan and Aesari Wars set this world back by millennia. We have so much to rediscover about magic and technology.”

“I still know fuck all about Artificing.” I watched on enviously as she scanned the first unintelligible page, then flipped it over and continued reading like it was nothing. “I figured it’s all about Crafting mini-games. Seemed like a grind to me.”

“I think the artificing classes are definitely more grindy than combat classes. But there’s lots of different kinds of artificing,” Rin remarked absently. “Some of the rarer Advanced Paths, like airship building, architecture, and metaphysics—those are really technical. But you’ve also got APs that are just kind of fun and simple, like Combat Alchemist or Jack of All Trades. Artificers really can be anything from a theoretical arcane mathematician to a tomb-raider type character... in any case, the emphasis is always going to be on crafting and discovery.”

I laughed. “Arcane Mathematician? Who the hell came up with these classes?”

“No one really ‘came up’ with them. The game does that itself,” Rin said. “It analyzes your brain data and offers you a world-balanced class offering.”

I scratched my head. “Huh.”

“Alright. Those three should be a good start.” Kythias interrupted by thumping a smaller, fatter book onto the cart. “Get started on these, and I’ll go see if I can find a Dakhari bestiary.”

“Okay! And thanks for these! I’m excited to finally see the locked books!” Rin jittered on her feet, petting the topmost cover.

“I’m excited that anyone actually wants to read them,” Kythias replied. “Gods know we spent long enough with the transcriptions. I told my master that if he wanted anyone to read them, we should glue the chapters of a romance novel into every other section to entice people to page through the book.”

I mimed stroking an invisible moustache. “Ah yes, I can see it now: ‘The Fall of the Meewfolk Empire, Volume 1, and My Wet Hot Allosaurus Summer, compiled into one riveting omnibus’.”

“I know. It was a brilliant idea. Future generations would look back on our works and marvel,” Kythias sighed. “But much to my regret, Mastersage Nemeth isn’t exactly known for his sparkling sense of whimsy.”

***

We took the books to an adjacent study, where Rin and I sat shoulder to shoulder for several hours and pored over the four volumes Kythias had picked out for us. If I was being honest, it was more accurate to say that Rin pored over the larger books and took notes with supernatural speed, while I tried to work my way through one five-page entry on sandworms without relying on text-to-speech assistance from Navigail.

“So, good-ish news and some bad news,” I remarked to Rin, frowning down at the page in front of me. “If I’m reading this right, then yes, sandworms are vulnerable to sonic attacks. It says they can be chased off by thumpers—that’s pretty standard lore for sandworms in a bunch of different books and games—but to actually kill a full-grown worm, you have to be the size of Withering Rose or like… fifty levels higher than them. If you’re not a god-tier superweapon, you can still use sonic attacks to soften them up. There’s apparently vents or bony protrusions you can knock off that leave