Seekers of the Stone Maker

Leaf left the door open and walked into his room. His mind was overflowing with ideas, and his excitement was hard to hide. He pulled out his new spellbook. On the front page, he took a moment to look at the word on it: Vecna. It tugged at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t grasp it. It sounded familiar, but it escaped him at the moment.

Instead, he turned the page and started writing. His staff needed work, and he had never felt so capable before. He jotted down notes, instructions, and even sigils that would need to be made to add to his abilities.

While he worked, he could feel the tugging at the back of his mind. There was a sadness that he wasn’t sharing with the party yet. He had lost Bruna in making a deal with Helena. They knew, of course. He didn’t hide it from them, but he felt immense guilt for it. The cards, too. He had just pulled another one without any clue as to what it looked like or what it did. Another card had been that way for him, too, The Fates. It worried him that these cards could take control of him in such a way and cause him to pull them out. He wasn’t sure what they did, how they worked, or why Ramona had them to begin with. He felt free of them for the first time since he’d had them, but there was a minor panic in the back of his mind. If they were able to appear in his pocket after being in a pocket dimension in his bag, what good would hiding them under a bowl really do? Would they come back? What else could these cards do?

It only felt like a moment had passed, but when he heard the knock at the door, he looked down to see pages of new information written.

“Just checkin’ on you. Everything alright in there?”

“Mr. Muffins! Please, come in!”

Leaf walked toward the door, and before he reached it, it opened at his command. He could see the look of concern change to surprise on Mr. Muffins’ face.

“Everything okay?” He asked.

“Since when did your staff do that?”

Leaf turned back to his staff to see it floating a foot off the ground, spinning slightly, new sigils and runes being etched into it on its own. The fulgurite on top flashed with light, then it fell to the ground, clattering on the wooden floor.

“I think you’ll like this, Mr. Muffins. Take a look.”

Leaf walked back over and grabbed his book. He went back a few pages and handed it over to him. He watched as Mr. Muffins looked over his work. Towards the end, his whiskers twitched, and Leaf smiled, knowing he approved.

“Did you-”

“I managed to take a spell known for causing fire to appear and transmuted it so that lightning would be caused instead!”

“Not to sound rude, Leaf, but this is brilliant! How in, well here, did you come up with this?”

“I’m not exactly sure. I just wanted to figure it out and had been pouring over books the last few days in Karthmere Keep. Then today, after pulling the card out, it’s like I knew exactly how to do it.”

“And the floating staff part?”

“I’m not sure of that, to be honest.”

“Can I?” Mr. Muffins asked, gesturing to the staff on the ground.

“Of course.”

Leaf watched as he carefully picked it up and looked over it.

“And these runes?”

“Oh, yes! Here.”

Leaf turned the page and showed him the writing he had done.

Lightning strikes with the sky

Thunder follows, ending nigh

The Staff of Fulmination

“You wrote this?”

“It’s in my handwriting,” Leaf laughed at his joke.

“Well, since it looks like you’re done. Would you mind taking a look at something?”

Leaf nodded, trying to figure out what Mr. Muffins would want help with. He walked across the hall and opened the door to his room. After a moment of shuffling around, he returned with a blueprint. He laid it down on the bed and let Leaf look at it.

At first, it looked like a mix of symbols and sigils, but as Leaf moved his eyes through it, he could see it as if illusioned into a three-dimensional concept.

“What are you going to call it?” Leaf asked.

“Distilled Arcane Essence Mechanics. At least, that’s the running name for it right now.”

“If you managed this… Do you know what this could do?”

“That’s the hope, Leaf. It would be for everyone.”

The minutes turned into hours. Leaf and Mr. Muffins talked over the one blueprint, taking notes on the various aspects they could think of. Before they knew it, dinner had already started and was sitting on the table in the main room. It wasn’t until Myla walked by and knocked on the door that they both looked up.

“Dinner’s ready.”