The Runesmith

‘It’s surprising that they can live in such conditions and still have a smile on their faces.’

Roland was walking back home after being forced to take part in the family get-together. It was loud, some of the kids smelled rather odd and he did his best to leave early. Even with all of those downsides to the experience, there was a certain warm fuzzy feeling. A feeling that he long forgot after coming to this world.

He didn’t ask too many questions as he didn’t want to be too nosy or get too involved in their situation. It would be easy to solve their problems with money but he didn’t really have a reason to do so. This was still a harsh environment that they were living in. His funds would be better spent on expanding his workshop than looking after children that seemed healthy enough.

The guards nodded their heads at him and allowed him to leave. The gate was closed and he had to exit through the side door. As with other cities like Albrook, there was a curfew. This hour fell at nine P.M., all the gates would be closed at this hour and the guards started their patrol.

This didn’t mean that the locals couldn’t go into Taverns to have some fun. This only meant that they would be controlled if they ever wished to leave the city at this hour. Things like large carriages would be stopped and would need to wait till the gates opened in the early morning.

‘It’s good to be a higher grade adventurer at these times.’

Not all things were equal though. The adventurers had a free pass to move back and forth between the dungeon and the city. Everyone knew that the adventurers were the reason that this city was prospering. It would not be the best idea to slow down their biggest revenue stream which was monster parts from the dungeon.

Without his helmet to show him the way, Roland switched to a pair of glasses. With his skills to compress the runes even further he was able to enchant them with the night vision spell. It was a bit annoying but walks like this brought him back to reality and how this was not his previous world.

If he was in a leading position in this city he would get some construction workers to set up some street lights. The road that was leading up to the dungeon was also not in the best condition. It was just your average dirt road that was paved out by adventurer footprints.

Luckily there were some attributes to this world that didn’t totally make it a backward medieval world. For one thing, there was no stench of a horse or human excrement some people would attribute to such times. This was all thanks to classes like beast and monster tamers that is. Creatures like slimes and some slug-type creatures liked to feast on those smelly things.

This kept the streets clean, it didn’t take much to tame a few slimes so low level adventurers could earn some coin by just pointing their pets to do the work. There were actually some large scale operations that focused on slime cleaning. The little creatures were quite handy to have around.

“I should hurry up…”

Roland increased his pace as he had an appointment to keep. Today he would give back the improved tier 3 schematic that he had worked on. Even with it being the correct one he could not make it work. It was clear that he lacked some kind of layering skill to make it connect.

The tier 3 runes were clearly not made by a simple stacking method. There was a part that he was missing and maybe the person he was exchanging notes with could help him with it.

Back at home, he was met with a rather drunk Bernir and a sleepy-looking Agni. The wolf was busy munching on some mana stones. With his skills not being topped of it would take some time before he could advance him into the higher tier 2 adult Ruby Wolf.

“Hey boss, how did it go? Did little Elodia agree to the offer?”

“I’m not sure, she was acting a bit strange at the beginning…”

The girl was a bit more panicky before he presented his offer. She even looked somewhat disappointed afterwards but he still hoped to make it work.

“Oh did she refuse?”

“No, I think she will think it through.”

“Hah, if she is smart she will come work here!”

The biggest benefit that he was offering was not the increased salary, it was the weekend breaks. If someone took a moment to think about it, they would be asked to work less and get paid more.

The only problem he could see Elodia having with his offer was his store being new. If she left the guild and his store went under then she would be out of a job. But seeing as she was talented in that regard, she would probably be able to get her old job back.

“If she refuses we’ll have to go to the city hall and post a notice.”

He would rather get Elodia to work with him but if she refused that would not keep him from going through with his store. There was just too much work to be done for him and Bernir alone. They already had a part timer arriving in a few days that would take over some of Bernir’s duties.

“Aye.”

Roland entered his house while Bernir remained outside of his shed. The log shed in question had been extensively worked on by the dwarf. It now even had a nice side bedroom where Bernir placed a regular bed in. His own little place that was all his.

Back in his own house, Roland moved to his own bedroom where the communication orb was in. Thanks to it being a runic variant he was able to discover a few outside uses.

While the program inside was above his skill level he would be able to recreate the rune. It was tier 2 and didn’t require much work besides a similar medium like the golem core that he already had some practice on.

The program inside of this rune was like a router that connected to a gate outside. This was all that it was doing along with some other runes that were used to forward the user’s voice and image.

While if he just recreated the rune’s design he would only get another crystal ball, if he altered where the signal was transferred to, he could create his own closed system.

This was something that he was working on as he wanted to create a set of communication devices around his workshop. One would be placed in the new store while another would be down in his workshop. With a set of these devices, he would not need to run back and forth if his workers needed something from him.

“Uh… what am I doing?”

Roland gave out a sigh as he was looking over his own face in the mirror. Having spent a big chunk of his time hiding it, he was not used to displaying it to others. Even less to people that he meant to impress, it felt like he was back in time and trying to get through a job interview.

The communication cristal gave out a sound and after poking it with his index finger it was activated. Soon he was greeted by a familiar-looking black cat.

“Good evening young friend, the moon is splendid today, isn’t it?”

“Ah yes, it is…”

The clouds in the area made the full moon a bit less pronounced in his city but this little comment had Roland thinking, was this cat a believer of the moon god instead of the sun goddess?

“I’ve received your schematics…”

Roland could see the cat stretching out on the ground as before he was lazily sitting on some kind of giant pillow. It didn’t seem that Lucille was anywhere in this room. In the background, he could see some shelves filled with books and strange alchemical concoctions being brewed.

This was a peculiar sight to behold as they were floating up in the air by themselves. To someone that was not informed about magic this might seem like much, to Roland on the other hand it was nothing out of the ordinary.

It might have seemed like this was some hard-to-do spell but the reality was different. Something like this was mostly done through memorization. The spell caster would perform the task manually first while a spell was cast in the background. This would record the motions they went through and when it was recast it would perform them in the same fashion.

This was only the simplest variation of this kind of spell which was also the worst. It didn’t give much space for error. For instance, if the potions that were being floated around were in the wrong vials or the weight was not quite the same, it would break the spell.

A spellcaster could add layers onto the spell. It was similar to a program that followed logical conditions. If the weight was not in order one could program in a function to halt the spell, get rid of the excess of the potion, and so forth.

This was no simple matter as most of the mages followed the premade spells just like runesmiths did. Only the higher tier Archmages could hope to unravel the secrets behind the spell’s inner workings.

“... and… how was it?”

The cat took his time in strutting around the area to just sit back down on his pillow before he answered.

“Ah, yes it’s fine.”

“It’s… fine?”

“What? Did you expect me to sing your praises for correcting a basic tier 3 rune boy? Don’t get ahead of yourself, this was only the beginning!”

Roland wanted to do nothing more than to go over to where the cat was and drop a slice of cheese on his face. Regretfully in this exchange, he had more to lose if he angered the cat. His general spell knowledge was meager so he was unsure of what he should start with.

“The beginning? Wait, I did what you asked me for, wouldn’t it be time for you to return the favor?”

This didn’t mean that he would not try to gain more knowledge out of it.

“Oh? Did you finish with the material that I sent you over?”

“Yes, It filled up some holes in my knowledge but most of it was quite basic.”

Roland shrugged as through the years of self-study and experimentation he gained his own way of thinking. While the runic books covered some bases they didn’t go into too much beyond what he already knew.

Most of what the books focused were on disclosing the schematics and didn’t go too much into detail about why. The books mostly divided runes into larger chunks of runic schematics that were then put together like puzzle pieces.

This was very similar to his old approach where he just mapped out all the runic components that acted similar to circuit board components. The only difference was that the books didn’t do a good job at dividing everything up which then limited the uses.

“Quite basic you say? Those are strong words for someone that knows little about the mysteries of runes.”

The cat replied while his tail danced around back and forth.

“Alas you have risen to the challenge, you probably won’t disclose how you managed to achieve this while being at your level?”

Roland just shrugged as he did not want to discuss his debugging skill. This was a clear give and take relationship and he didn’t think that the cat would disclose all of its secrets if he asked for them either.

“I figured as much. If you wish I can send you some theorem about the inner workings of the runes… but did you have something specific in mind?”

There it was, his chance to make a move.

“Yes, actually… I’ve been having some trouble with my golem research, I could use any materials that you might have about the way that runic golems are constructed…”

“Runic golems?”

The professor, who was a cat, asked.

“Yes… is there a problem?”

“No, but I expected you to be at least a bit different than those bearded buffoons. I guess you are still a runesmith and they only have those clunky contraptions on their mind.”

“Is that so…”

He wasn’t really sure how to reply to the cat’s rant. To him, golems and their variations that could be made were quite intriguing. What kid didn’t once dream about having a robot do their biddings? The golems were quite similar to their modern-day counterparts but they actually worked.

“Fine, I’ll send a gale to you but I’ll have you look over some schematics.”

“That’s fine, I’ll correct them if I can…”

“If you can? Does your little secret skill have some limits, Mr. Wayland?”

Roland didn’t reply as he wasn’t sure himself. The only time that his skill had failed him was when he looked over the runic bank card. If the card was a tier 3 rune or a tier 4 rune he had no idea of knowing.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes… Interesting.”

The cat started grinning for some reason while nodding.

“Very well, this will be all for today!”

Soon they said their goodbyes and Roland was left in his own bedroom to ponder. He was sure that what the cat sent him to alter would become increasingly harder. But, this was all fine as it would only aid him in discovering his own limits.

While he was unable to make tier 3 runes himself he was gathering important research materials for later. The components that these tier 3 runes were composed of were similar in some spots while totally different in others.

There were some findings that he made after working on this first one. For once it seemed that the rune had one base rune that acted as the core. The stacking effect would be multiplied from it as the other stacks had similar base patterns which then added more changes.

Roland knew that he could probably map the tier 3 runes out just as he did with the common and lesser ones. The biggest problem here was as always, the inside spell structure that made the whole rune work.

If he didn’t understand that he would not be better than all the other Runesmiths that just copied runes over from old books. He wanted to be able to customize them to his own wishes only then he felt like he would be able to call himself a proper Runesmith.

‘The gale should arrive tomorrow.’

He rubbed his chin while sitting down, luckily his cat friend did things with haste. The new tier 3 rune schematic would probably arrive early in the morning. With it, he would receive some insights into golems.

Roland made a mental recap of what he needed to do. First on his agenda was finally creating his first prototype golem. Then the creation of the store would be next, along with hiring more people.

The thought of buying up more of the land around his house had also sprung into his mind. While he left some of the empty unkempt fields out of the picture, he might be able to use them.

If he managed to fashion golems then next in line would be automation. Having a small factory building with golems and machines that could create basic weapons might not be that far off.

‘The more I think about it, the workload just increases…’

With a sigh, he went to bed. While his dream of becoming a business owner was somewhat already in motion it wasn’t the end. On his mind were many ways of improvement and innovation, just how much could he build up this runic workshop?

Could it reach the heights of some companies that spread through the kingdom? Maybe it could even go beyond that and he could become a household name on the whole continent?

‘I’m getting ahead of myself, one step at a time.’

“Good night, Agni.”

A certain Ruby Wolf gave out a woof while laying next to his bed. Soon the two fell into a deep slumber, one dreaming of being a baron of runes while the otherʼs mind was filled with pesky squirrels.