A little before I planned to depart for Sundance’s shop and my crafting work, Ceci returned with Davon’s reply to my letter. His response had one word: Great! It meant that the young loremaster was available for me to stop by his offices for a quick bite to eat a little before nightfall this evening. As Ceci bowed and turned to take her leave, I noticed that she had the powdered residue of some sweet she had purchased scattered all across the front of her robes where she had hurriedly wiped her hands.

  I cleared my throat, and she turned back around.

  I pointed at my robes and then at her own. She looked down, saw the mess, grinned widely, and ran off after giving me a thumbs-up. Hopefully, she was on her way to clean up, or some master would undoubtedly chastise her.

  I sighed and settled back in my chair. I now had a dinner engagement with the city’s loremaster, but until then, I had more studying and preparation for trials. It was time to head to my apprentice forge at the shop.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon working diligently on additional magical rings with time off to meet with some friends who had agreed to help charge rings with selected spells. Some were helping me with Single Use Spells, and others with some permanent rings I was making that required three repetitions of castings across forty-nine hours. The time was based on a variant of the Rule of Three across three days, but Damascus noted that 49 hours covered a three-day time frame using the perfect square of the magical number seven.

  I also bumped into master mages who either knew me or knew of me and offered to gift me a ring or two. I got some more unexpected, heavy-hitting spells along the way. I was not sure if it was a coincidence, good fortune, or subtle help from my master and other enchanters, but I was deeply appreciative of the assistance. It seemed like every mage who visited my master recently offered me a spell or two for my SUS rings.

  Despite these occasional surprise gifts, most of the spellwork was done by me or my friends. Since first and second level spells used copper rings, and they were inexpensive to come by, I made sure that I made a Single Use Spell ring, or SUS ring, for each of them that was identical to the spells they made for me. I was draining my casting points daily through all these object creations, but it was worth it to thank my friends and prepare myself for my coming trials and what lay beyond. For every SUS ring I pocketed for use with my staff, I gave an identical one away to them in payment for their magical contributions.

  There were seven of us in my ad hoc friend group with the recent introduction of Bido to our august assemblage. Adriana was my oldest friend, and as an elementalist, she was helping me make several more SUS rings that included attacks, summonings, and defensive spells from each of the five element types. The adventurer’s set that Adriana provided in Master Gizmo’s chambers got us started. I made sure she had complete sets of the spells she made, although she insisted that I did not need to give her a ring for every ring she made, since many were intended for our friend group.

  The offensive spells consisted of a repeat of the Firebolt, Air Bolt, Water Bolt, and Pebble Blast spells, along with the opposite of the blood element, the Heal spell called Harm. She explained that she made these at a maximum of five casting points each, with the exception of Harm, which was at seven points. It was a variable spell and could be made as high as available casting points permitted. The Pebble Blast spell was an area of effect spell, while the other offensive elemental spells were directed solely at one target.

  The summoning elemental spells were all third element in nature because Addy insisted that the first element summoning spells involved very weak creations and were hardly worth their effort. These required silver rings because of their power. Her summoning spells included the third element spell, which allowed the ring’s user to choose a major elemental of air, blood, earth, fire, or water. She also secured some copper ring second element spells that were specifically made for those elementals and not the generalist spells that were her forte. In those cases, I got a copper ring of Lesser Fire Elemental as a summoning, along with the other four varieties as well.

  The defensive elemental spells included the Heal spell from the adventurer’s set, the first fire element spell called Torch for a heat and light source, the first air element spell Breathe Any to protect me from drowning or poisonous gas, the first water element spell Water Walk, and the first earth element spell Walk/Pass Earth which allowed me to travel through earth like I would walk through air for sixty seconds before the spell effects ended. I thought that spell was fascinating, and she assured me that more powerful spells allowed for significantly longer travel time, especially when traveling through tricky areas like molten or dense rock.

  For the spells she had not mastered herself, she arranged to have them made for me, along with a gift of a duplicate ring given in payment to the journeyman she had petitioned to make it. She chose only her most trusted elementalist peers for these tasks.

  In addition to the Single Use Spell rings, Adriana helped me create a permanent ring with her Major Protection from Elements, which has a once-per-day base enchantment function. Unlike the SUS rings that were consumed when used, this ring was much harder to make and required a lot more time and casting points. But the spell’s magic would last for many years. I was also creating the ring to hold five sockets, which I would fill with gems or crystals at some point.

  Spell rings were not my only favors. Biff was my brawler friend, whom I met during the early days of my apprenticeship with Sundance. He was helping me experiment with ring skills rather than just ring spells in my SUS rings. He helped me create two pretty cool copper rings. The first ring granted Lesser Ignore Damage, and with the maximum number of skill points he dumped into it at this level, it enabled me to ignore a one-time damage of up to ten of my health points. That could be a lifesaver.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The other SUS ring he helped me make was an offensive attack skill that added to a physical strike with a blunt weapon or bare hands attack called Crushing Blow. It would add a one-time bonus of ten damage to a successful attack by me against an opponent’s health score, which could be enough to save me from a life-threatening attack by some magical creature or opponent. I was able to double up on both his rings while making copies for him, but I could not make more copies because he also had to prepare for his trials, and his additional work duties prevented us from seeing each other every day during this final month.

  Steven, like Adriana, was another long-time family friend, and his studies as a cleric opened up his schedule more freely during his trial preparation. His last month of training involved more prayer and service activities than studying and testing. He helped me make seven special rings I planned to give each of us as apprentices on our last day together. All priests and even blood elementalists could heal, but clerics had some specialized healing spells that they used. He also helped with SUS rings that contained a one-time Lesser Heal Self spell that would heal up to twenty health points. While elemental healings converted one casting point into one healing point, Steven’s cleric spell converted one casting point into two healing points. True, he had to learn both a Lesser Heal Self and a Lesser Heal Other spell that were second level, but the benefits were significant.

  I spent a good amount of time on a ring made from Dwarven copper that Sundance taught me to craft a few years ago. This ring contained a 10pt Lesser Heal Group spell that would work once each day. In this ring, I also created five sockets where I planned to place magical gem-cut rubies that granted once-per-day blood elementalist Heal spells, good for 10 points of healing on whomever I chose as a target. Thanks to my gem prodigy abilities, I could select which ability a gem possessed rather than its random generation when placed in an object. True, seven-point magical gemstones did not have spectacular powers, and their powers were only good once each day; still, being able to choose rather than get a random placement helped a lot. I could also extract a gemstone without damaging it and keep its powers intact through concentration, willpower, and the expenditure of one casting point. Usually, if a magical gemstone could be removed at all, it was destroyed in the process. My prodigy abilities were a game changer in this regard.

  I purchased the rubies needed for the blood elemental magic spells myself, and with Sundance’s watchful eye, crafted them into the 7pt magical cut needed for gems to be socketed. I did that for all five elemental gem types over the past several months. It took a lot of time, but I loved the work, and the magical results were worth my efforts.

  Another pair of apprentice friends I met a little over a year ago had joined our group. The two have been close friends since childhood. Wilma was an illusionist apprentice, and Simon was a monk apprentice. I never got a straight answer about how they had met, but whenever it came up, Wilma laughed, and Simon blushed. It seemed to me that it was a good story, but she kept it a secret, and he would quickly change the subject whenever it was raised.

  Wilma helped with three spells, which I put in SUS rings and gave her copies. The first was a second vision spell called Darkvision, which allowed the spell’s target to see in absolute darkness as if it were a clear day. It did not affect cloudy or smoky environments obstructing vision, but it was still beneficial.

  A second spell she provided was called Limited Invisibility. It was a weak spell that did not last long, but it could be a lifesaver for what it offered. For the duration of five minutes, the target, which could be living or inanimate, would become invisible so long as it did not move. Movement of any kind canceled its spell effects. But if it were needed to hide someone or something quickly and for a short time, it would be a terrific solution.

  The third illusionist spell she gave me was called Silence. It could last up to half an hour, and everything within its area of effect was made utterly silent. No other sense was affected, but there were ways it could help in a pinch, especially against other spellcasters who used a word feature in their spell casting and needed to speak.

  Her help was very generous, and I appreciated it.

  Simon was a gentle soul and amazingly gifted physically. He had mad acrobatic and unarmed combat skills. He could run like a wolf and jump like a rabbit. The only thing I never saw him do was fly. He did not talk a lot and never bragged about his abilities. I was sure he could do even more, but I had no idea what it was, even after we had been friends for around fifteen months. However, there was one thing he confided in me, and it was something he was using to help me create two copies of SUS rings.

  He had a second meditation skill called Lesser Channel Energy. It allowed the conversion of skill, casting, and health points into each other. Of specific interest to me was converting skill points into casting points. His use of the skill came at the cost of two points spent for one point gained. He made two single-use copper rings for me that would grant me ten casting points each. It was pretty handy. He refused to take a ring for himself.

  Our most recent addition was Bido, and he already knew both Simon and Steven, although not very well. They both liked him and had only good things to share, so he was a solid addition, although he was the newbie in our group. Bido was not as quiet as Simon, but not as outgoing as the others. He was somewhere between secretive and shy. It was hard to tell because thaumaturgists tended toward paranoia and double talk as a general rule, but I never sensed anything but earnestness in Bido. He appeared to transfer the trust in me from our meeting with his master to a trust in the group as a whole. I’m sure it helped that he knew others to begin with. We were only able to meet a few times over the past couple of weeks, but he was treated like one of the gang from the start.

  Bido offered to help my trials through one of his defensive mirror spells, known as the Lesser Reflect Damage spell. It was a second sympathy spell, which is what thaumaturgists called their levels. It was a weaker version of the SUS ring his master made for both of us the day we first met together. For Bido’s spell, I used a copper ring to anchor its base spell with its two effects: it reflects 100% of any first-level spell or nonmagical damage back on its caster/wielder, or it reflects 50% of the damage back from any second-level spell or minor magical weapon attack. I knew almost nothing about mirror magic except that it was tricky and challenging to learn. This was another great defensive spell. Using four rings, Bido made two copies for me and two for himself.

  Bido also gave me a spell that uses a silver SUS ring. It was a third sympathy spell and the lowest of a series known as mage shield. His spell was called Mage Shield I, and it defended against force, magic, mind, and spirit attacks of the first through third levels with differing degrees of protection.

  While all of these spells and skills were one-shot deals, and in the long run, I still could not hope to hold up against a truly powerful mage or warrior in combat, they offered me enough options that I could be very flexible and a true utility player in an adventuring group.

  As the days dwindled toward trials, our friendships and individual skills started to come together and develop into an adventuring group. When Spring Day arrived, and we all passed our trials, we would head out together. It was an exciting time and demanded a lot of work. In the spirit of upgrading my contributions, I used my free time before dinner to complete as much reading and enchanting rings as possible.

  It’s what happened after dinner that was the problem…