[RAW]Hearthomancy -- Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Lorelei drifted behind me, tisking and tutting at the dilapidated state of Rotwood Manor.

Returning outside, I quickly cleaned up my tools and equipment, feeling guilty that I had left them sitting outside.  Thankfully, the manor was remote enough that nobody had spotted and lifted them.

A workman is only as good as his tools; I resolved to treat mine a little better.

I had at least been smart enough to gather up my magical supplies and my grimoire, packing them back up in the truck.

Lorelei kept glancing around, looking at the moldering exertion of the mansion and my piecemeal efforts to shore the place up.  She looked distressed by the boarded-up windows and the tarps stretched along the roof.

“This is just a start, don’t worry,” I assured her as I packed the last of my gear into the back of my truck.  “It’ll take a while, but I promise I’m going to fix this place up.  Trust me.”

She gave me a small smile.

I was grateful that she seemed to know what a truck was.  Rather than climbing inside though, she just drifted through the door and sat in the passenger seat.

It felt weird, to leave my new lair so soon, but there wasn’t anything to eat, and the utilities were shut down, so I couldn’t even get tap water to drink.  Thankfully, there was a gas station a few miles down the road; we’d pop in, grab some food and drinks, then head back to Rotwood Manor.

I explained all of this to Lorelei as we started heading down the driveway.  She didn’t say anything, but she seemed relieved we would only be gone for a few minutes.

We rolled down the drive slowly.  I took a moment just to feel the different types of mana floating through the property.  Earth and Wood seemed the strongest away from the manor, but I could feel Air, Light, and Darkness as well, joined with minor notes of Life and Death.

I was sure if I fully explored and mapped the property, I’d find all the other elements represented as well.  My plans for raising the funds necessary to fix the house suddenly seemed within reach.

We both gave a small gasp of surprise as we reached the end of the driveway.  The manor’s ambient mana, the fuel for my magic and Lorelie’s existence, suddenly dimmed.  It was still there, I could feel it trailing after me, connecting me like an umbilical cord for an astronaut.

Still, I felt noticeably diminished, weaker.

That was the price Hearth Wizards paid.  Within their lair, their domains, they were the undisputed kings and masters.  But outside their territories, they lost much of their power.

I turned towards Lorelei.  “Are you alright?”

The spirit nodded.  “I think so.  Everything is just – so strange.  Ever since I saw that weird screen, the System, all this weird information has just been flowing through my head.  I know stuff without knowing it, you know?”

She sank into her seat.  “How do I even know it’s called the System?”

It was a daunting task to explain everything to her; hell, I barely understood half the changes that had overtaken the world since The Reckoning.

“Let’s start with what you do know,” I suggested, driving slowly.  “Before you saw your stats, you said you remembered the manor in better days, right?”

Lorelei’s brown creased as she thought.  “I can.  I remember when it used to be a grand manor, the floors polished until they shone, the walls covered by portraits, and the ceilings were painted with majestic frescos and images.  My father was…”

She trailed off.  “But he wasn’t my father, not really?  I don’t know, it’s like I’m remembering another person’s life, seeing their memories, but I know they’re not my own?”

I remembered what the Skill description had said about the familiar’s personality being drawn from the liar's history.  Maybe it was possible she was pulling on the memories of a previous resident or owner before the place fell into ruin.

“Do you know how long ago this was?” I asked.

“No,” she said faintly.  “Though I do remember when the house was rewired with electricity!  The lights were amazing, they made everything so bright, and with none of the soot stains caused by lamps!”

“Okay, so pretty far back,” I confirmed.

We came to an intersection, stopping at a red light.

Another truck rolled by.  In the bed was a giant beast, some kind of mountain lion, only about five times larger than any I had seen before. It had been shot and killed, its corpse tied down to the bed of the truck.

Lorelei gawked in amazement.“What is that?”

“Some kind of dungeon beast,” I guessed.  “There’s a small one up in Centre country, just outside the state university.  I know they offer dungeoneering courses for up-and-coming adventurers.”

The spirit looked at me quizzically.

“Okay, so let’s back up,” I said as the light changed.  “Let’s start with The Reckoning.”

Nobody really knows why The Reckoning happened; some scientists argued it was caused by an unexpected shift in reality, our existence accidentally coming into alignment with another universe with conflicting rules of physics.  Religious leaders argued that it was a sign from god, while others claimed existence was just a simulation and we’d been patched with an upgraded version.

What couldn’t be argued with was The System, the overarching rules that came into existence overnight.  Suddenly everyone had stats that quantified their mental and physical abilities, and they had Skills, which seemed like magic.

“Proficiencies were a bit weird,” I said as we coasted down the road.  “At first they were all combat related.  Soldiers, athletes, historical recreationists, people who fought with their hands, suddenly saw all their experiences detailed and assigned level values.”

Lorelei frowned. “Like?”

I shrugged.  “A martial artist would look at their stats and see a bunch of Proficiencies for the various schools they studied, a soldier would see entries for marksmanship, firearms, or any special training they had received.  At first, all the Proficiencies were combat and survival related.”

But over time, new, non-combat entries had appeared, like the ones I had related to construction.  There were Proficiencies for singing, dancing, painting, acting, cooking, just about any activity or craft that took dedication and practice.

“People figure The System is adaptive, it grows as the society it affects grows, learning all their new Skills and Proficiencies it unlocks,” I explained.  “It starts combat focused because of the dungeons.”

Dungeons were links to other realities, other universes touched by The System.  Like their name, they took the appearance of towers, underground labyrinths, or elaborate mazes, divided up into floors, and tiers. Beyond monsters, they held treasures and secrets, deadly perils, and tantalizing rewards.

“Some dungeons, like the university’s, are small, they don’t connect to anything yet,” I explained to the hearth spirit.  “But the big ones?  If you can brave the depths and find an exit, you can find yourselves in an all-new reality.”

That’s how humanity had first met the drow, the dark elves.  They were religious refugees who’d fled their home reality eons ago, drifting through the various dungeons, trying to find a new sanctuary. The drow were more than happy to share their knowledge of The System and dungeons in turn for somewhere to call home.  Almost every major city with a dungeon featured a drow neighborhood or enclave.

“You only tend to find dungeons inside of big cities, a place with a lot of people, a lot of history, and a lot of mana,” I told the spirit.  “For example, the one inside Philadelphia is massive, it goes down at least a hundred-and-twenty floors and connects with three other known realities.”

Dungeons were fueled by mana, the ambient energy created by all of existence. It was another point of contention on why, but mana clustered around places of significance, places where important or dramatic events had occurred.

The largest dungeon on Earth was in Damascus, Syria, the oldest city in the world.  Adventurers were still trying to map its depths, but it was said to go beyond five-hundred floors.

We reached the gas station.  It was little more than a place to fill up and grab snacks, a rest stop in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.  Hoping out of my truck, I sent a quick text to my folks to let them know I was fine.

I had been staying in their basement, which had its own entrance; it was uncommon for me to come and go while they were still asleep, so they rarely worried if they didn’t see me for a day or two, especially if I was working.

It was very tempting to text them, telling them I was moving out, but I held off.  There were things I needed to do first.

There were a few other people in the store, including the clerk.  A few glanced at Lorelei, but if they thought it was odd I was being followed by a ghost, nobody commented.

The spirit looked up and down the store’s narrow aisles.  “For everything you told me, this just feels way too… normal.  There are monsters and dungeons now, people can do magic!”

And for a while, things had gone insane.  I had been in middle school when The Reckoning hit, and I remember staying home, glued in front of the TV, as my family watched the news with bated breath.

I took a sip of the store’s coffee.  It tasted like crap, but it had enough caffeine to start my day.

“People still need to work, to make money,” I said with a shrug as I hit the shelves and grabbed a few things to eat.  “Do you want anything?”

“No,” she shook her head.

I wasn’t even sure if she could eat or drink, honestly, I didn’t know a ton about familiars; I hadn’t seen any other hearthomancy sources mention anything about it, but I was probably bonded to a lair far, far more powerful than the average hearth adept.

Paying for our purchases, we got back into my truck and hit the road.  It seemed like a perfectly normal, sedate weekday morning.

“But yeah, things did go mad for a while, but people are adaptable.” I drank my coffee as we headed back to the manor.  “So now instead of growing up to be bankers, or bakers, or whatever, people can become adventurers instead, delving into dungeons or hunting monsters, or whatnot.  But we still need bankers and bakers, or in my case, construction workers with an interest in hearth magic.”

The System gave everyone who Classes, their professions.  Most people used their first for their careers, while the secondary were their hobbies or passions.  Switching Classes was easy, you just had to focus on a different field or project long enough and your stats would update to reflect the change.  Once you unlocked a Class, you could start learning Skills associated with it and you’d get bonuses to your Proficiencies growth.

I could drop everything and become a baker.  I’d probably earn Proficiencies in it at first, before one of my Classes flipped, at which point I’d start learning and growing at an accelerated rate.

“The System just dumps that knowledge in your head?” Lorelei asked.  “Like you suddenly know how to bake bread or make a cake?”

“Sort of,” I answered, unsure.  “Basically, it just organizes things you already knew and makes them easier to access.  So for example, a baker can easily recall a recipe, even if they only saw it at a glance, or remember a trick they heard about once to improve their cake.  The higher their Proficiencies, the lower the chance of making a mistake or failure either, depending on how much of a challenge they’re facing”

With a thought I could easily recall every trick and tip I knew about construction.  Any wall I framed would be straight and plumb, and any roofing I did would ensure against leaks or wind damage.

“Everything has gone nuts,” the spirit lamented.

I grinned as we reached the driveway to Rotwood Manor.  “Don’t get overwhelmed yet, this is just the beginning.”