Chapter 30

Diya’s hosts were still fast asleep when he set out the following morning. It was for the best. He wished to minimise human interaction. Before going to bed the night before, he had spent quite a while thinking about his deck. After the last couple of battles, he no longer trusted Territorial Awareness. He needed someone that understood cards better. Victoria spent the most time with the Boleyn tutor and paid attention during his lessons. As a result, she had a better understanding of tier-zero and tier-one cards than him. Diya had always focused more on learning about traps, beasts, tracking, and the many floors.

Tier-one Burst of Strength was an invaluable tool. Its use was situational, but fifteen seconds out of an hour had saved his life and helped him slay multiple monsters. Given his chosen path, he doubted it would stay in his deck forever. However, until he upgraded his soul, he hoped to slot it into the tier-one position whenever needed. For solo outings and trapping, he needed Ensnaring Vines, too. The same went for Mole's Claws.

Too many options. Not enough slots.

After some thought, Diya placed the Burst of Strength card in his pocket. As long as he played it smart with the journal’s blank slots, he didn't need any spells that focused solely on combat. Meanwhile, depending on the situation, it made sense to swap around Mole's Claws and Ensnaring Vines. Diya believed the former could help him with rock climbing, too. After some thought, he settled on Launcher, Climbing and Mole's Claw for his active deck.

Next, he settled on an isolated spot far from the hub and turned to the journal. During the past day's chaos, he had been more focused on learning to use the tools he already had instead of gathering new spells with Spell Thief. While the party rested, he'd also studied the already drawn cards. After he did the initial outline, they appeared printed on the page. Diya would have to expend more ink and time if he wanted to reproduce them again. He wanted to do neither. Instead, he focused on the runes that outlined them. More importantly, he compared Ink Bolts and Ink Fire. Afterwards, he did the same with Frozen Ink Lance and Ice Spear.

The first pair had come from the same tool, while the second was from the same family of monsters. Diya hoped the endeavour would help him isolate the runes for fire and ice. Even though Inkfire was a powerful spell, it burned through his stores in seconds. As a result, he couldn't afford to rely on it during combat.

Thanks to his many years of copying and studying runes, Diya recognised several shapes. Given where he discovered them and the accompanying images, he guessed several wouldn't prove useful for the endeavour and isolated them. After a couple of hours of study, he narrowed it down to four symbols.

While creating cards for sale, Diya had discovered that Ink Bolts drained the fountain pen the least. Therefore, it would serve as the foundation of his experiments. Unlike Latin or Sanskrit-based scripts, Gaia's runes either flowed from right to left or from top to bottom. Ink Bolts' card featured a script at the top, which shifted into the name when he focused on it. He guessed the runes running along the left served as the function and controller. So, Diya drew up four Ink Bolts and added each of the curious runes to the left-side script.

Two cards didn't manifest at all. They featured the symbols he assumed were Ice or Frost. The other two took shape, but their tiers didn't shape. When Diya focused on them, the names became clear to him.

Inkfire Bolts

Inkfire Smoke

Diya tested both straight away. The first did what the card said. Instead of spraying a tongue of sapphire flames, the pen released a trio of crossbow-bolt-like projectiles. They burned and sizzled as they flew before striking a tree trunk and exploding. The second card released a cloud of foul inky-blue smoke. Even while not standing in it, the stench left him coughing.

Smithing the four cards had only used a third of his ink stores. He guessed using them from the journal would drain the fountain pen even less. However, neither felt potent enough to use yet. Once the smoke had cleared, Diya studied the damage the cards had inflicted. Inkfire Smoke had singed the grass and covered everything in the area in inky soot. Meanwhile, the Inkfire Bolts had penetrated an inch into the tree trunk and then splintered the bark around the impact point. Dried blue and black residue coated the crater's inside. It was a potent attack, but Diya believed he could get more out of the card.

Before playing with the design some more, Diya tested the card three more times. The damage felt consistent, and he could use the card once a minute. The time delay was five times that for Inkfire Smoke. Spells slotted in the journal's blank slots didn't suffer from a cooling-off period. Instead, they consumed ink or reduced his stores while he manifested the related constructs. The testing focused more on figuring out the range.

The bolts flew straight for ten feet. Afterwards, their trajectory dipped, and only the central bolt flew in a straight line. The other two strayed in opposite directions. While fighting large beasts, the card wouldn't do significant damage. However, Diya hoped it would blind, distract, or even stun them momentarily. Ten feet was much too close for a ranged attack, though. At a distance, he would instead use the Frozen Ink Lance. So, he turned to the runes that had come with the journal.

First, Diya added Haste to the card. The tier still didn't change. The bolt only flew faster and another five feet further. Unfortunately, the damage to the tree trunks barely increased. His projectiles penetrated just under half an inch more. The changes felt sufficient, but Diya knew the card could take more. So, he compared Seek Prime Beast and Repel Beast. Isolating the symbol for Beast was easy, and Prime was too. He excitedly added Seek to the card.

Seeking Inkfire Bolts

Diya focused his eyes on a tree and fired the spell five times—three times using the card and twice through the journal. The card only responded to his will once every two minutes, and the other two uses only consumed a twelfth of his inkwell's contents. The bolts flew true for fifteen feet, moving faster than the version with just Haste. Afterwards, they suffered the same deviations. However, the trajectory corrected themselves mid-flight, and they spiralled or wove their way to the target.

Seek only added another seven feet to the spell's total range, and after the first fifteen feet, the spell's damage reduced, too. However, the exploding bolts and the burn damage made up for the shortcoming. When he fired, leaning out of cover, the projectiles curved to find their target. However, when he aimed at a densely populated area, obstacles interfered with their flight.

The work put a smile on his face. Diya added Fire, Smoke, Prime, Repel and Seek to the page of runes so he'd remember them. He felt accomplished enough to set aside his rage and start the day’s journey. Before he could focus on the path ahead, another Cardsmithing idea came to him.

While passing through the swamps, Diya targeted a mangrove tree’s overhanging branches and used Ensnaring Vines. Green chords flew from his left hand and draped over them, making them look like local flora. When Diya approached the curtain, nothing happened. As a living trap, it recognised him as the caster. However, Spell Thief didn’t differentiate. When he cast the ability, the green curtain of vines disappeared into the nib, and he felt its presence in the pen.

Diya added the spell to the journal and went through the process of creating the card. It consumed a third of his remaining ink, but Diya didn’t care. He had a hypothesis to test. The resulting card was only a tier zero. He guessed Ensnaring Ink Vines would lack the original’s durability. However, now that he had the blueprint in the journal, he could alter it to meet his specifications. Ink Vines didn’t help much during combat. They wrapped around his target but were far too weak to do more. Meanwhile, Ensnaring Vines tangled and choked them.

After some thought, Diya added the runes for Fire and Smoke to the card. It rose by a tier, and the name changed to Ensnaring Inkfire Vines. Diya tested the card on a boulder. The summoned vegetation was identical to that of the original card but made of sapphire flames. Acrid black smoke rose from it, too. While the trap didn’t trigger for him, Diya still felt the heat radiating off the vines. Ensnaring Inkfire Vines likely wouldn’t slow an enemy for long, but he hoped it would leave them burnt and hesitant.

The guidebook detailed the monsters in the area. Diya didn’t want to risk running into giant beasts alone, so he looked up at the humanoid tribal entities instead. It wasn’t just that they’d be better suited to his axe play. As far as he knew, almost all such societies followed a shaman or spirit caller-type individual. They tended to be several centuries old and wielded incredible powers. The monster cards earned from slaying them often provided powerful spells and summons. This made them desirable targets, of course, but Diya hoped to find one in one of the more inaccessible parts of the floor.

Diya headed back towards the plant monster he had slain the day before. He’d encountered several lizard men remains in its lair. That had to mean the reptilian people had a settlement nearby. It wasn’t marked in the guidebook, but he chalked that up to Climbers keeping clear of the area. Sooner or later, people would discover that the region was safe for traversal. Then all the hidden riches would be picked clean. After all, the little cliffs weren’t as inaccessible as the crags around the Bear’s Tooth.

It was all speculation, of course. Perhaps he’d walk away from the excursion with nothing more than the monster’s roots and dead flowers to show. Diya didn’t mind. He wanted a break from people and, hopefully, find a hidden door.

The other parties on the route shot Diya suspicious glances—only the incredibly powerful or extremely stupid ventured out alone. The floor’s rainforest biome put humankind at an exceptional disadvantage. It didn’t bother Diya. Neer used to say he loved the forests and wetlands and chalked them up to their origins. Baba grew up not far from the Sundarbans’ mangrove forests in Eastern India. Perhaps ancestry had to do with their comfort in such temperate regions.

Diya paused halfway through his journey and watched a few parties take down their prey. After they looted cards or valuable body parts and moved on, he dipped the fountain pen's nib into the spilt blood. His soul drank in the crimson fluid, and the tattoo on his forearm solidified, recovering from the ink it had lost to his testing.