A Soldier's Life - 329 - Living A Charmed Life (edited 1-15-24 +120 words, just cleaned it up a bit)

Chapter 329: Living A Charmed Life

I opened the Elvish text and groaned as I didn’t want to spend time slowly translating the text. I removed my translation amulet and placed the sapphire necklace pendant under my shirt after admiring it. It was cold on my skin, and the artifact took a healthy dose of my aether.

My vision sharpened—no, not my vision, my focus—my clarity. That is what this was! I grabbed the dreamscape amulet, removing the clarity pendant to use it. In the dreamscape, I went into the library, and with a thought, a book appeared in my hand. It flipped open to the page I had read a long time ago. On the page were numerous large gemstone pendants—all examples of pendants of clarity.

The pendant of clarity was prized by artisans and crafters for its ability to filter out distractions and keep the wearer focused on the task. I experienced a similar effect in the dreamscape, making learning much easier. A pendant of clarity was also known for being useful in problem solving. If these amulets were found in the Shimmering Labyrinth, then it was easy to make the logical leap that they greatly helped the crafters of Caelora. Maybe there were dozens of these amulets in the ruins. The text noted they were not as useful in combat as they focused a person’s mind in just one direction—maybe fighting one opponent—but more than one, and you would endanger yourself.

Oscar was begging for attention, dropping the ball repeatedly at my feet. I did a double take as Raelia was dressed in a see-through gown trying to get my attention. The rest of the dreamscape population was playing cards at a large table. I had gotten sick of them always asking for attention, so I muted them until I required their help. Everyone except for Oscar, that is.

I walked up to Raelia, her face brightening with a smile. With a thought, she was suddenly clothed, a frown appearing on her face. “Why did you do that? I thought you always wanted to try twins?” she asked playfully, looking around for the real Raelia. Ugh, I had talked to Raelia about fantasies, and she teased me to no end. She must have dressed this version of herself this way to tease me.

This dreamscape version of Raelia had been created by her and had some of her experience, most importantly, her knowledge of the Elven language. “I need you to help translate this book for me,” I said, holding up the charm spell form book.

She sighed, disappointed, “Fine, I can sit in your lap as we work through it.” I was about to tell her that was Oscar’s seat but just acquiesced. I had enough trouble arguing with the real Raelia. I could always change or alter the Raelia in the dreamscape—but then I might lose some of her personality. If I ever lost Raelia, this would be all that I had left of her. My eyes drifted over to my lost companions, Adrian and Lucien. No, I wouldn’t alter her.

We made quick work in the dreamscape in the translation, creating an English version of the book for me. I was now studying my options for the charm affinity.

The Elven text displayed the spell forms slightly differently than the Telhian counterparts. In the back of the book, there was an index for dozens more spell forms related to charm affinity and a comprehensive list of spells. Of course, I did not have any of the books they referenced. Hopefully, something in this list would strike me as useful imprint with my 23 charm affinity.

CHARM/MIND LESSER SPELL FORMS

Mind Fortress

Influence Mind

Telepathy

CHARM/MIND MAJOR SPELL FORMS

Beholden

Sleep

Compel Truth

CHARM/MIND APEX SPELL FORMS

Mass Charm

Mindwipe

Dreamworld

Mind fortress only required an affinity of 10 to imprint. The ability was similar to my slow aging in that it had to be sustained with a trickle of aether. The spell form offered defenses against aetheric spells that affected the mind and auras that some creatures emitted. Reading about those monster auras was frightening. A dragon’s fear could paralyze you. Some creatures could daze and confuse you. A dryad could seduce your mind. This spell form could even protect you from being afflicted by the petrifying gaze of Medusa. There were even some nightmarish creatures that could kill you with a look mentioned.

You were not guaranteed to be immune from the effects, but even with just a ten in charm/mind affinity, your defenses were tremendously stronger than those of a normal person. Even better, the spell form let the person know when they were being assaulted, and sometimes, that awareness was enough to repel an attack.

Mind fortress was not very strong with a ten affinity, but it also scaled with the mage’s affinity. That meant I could raise my charm affinity and increase the strength of this defense. I had been afflicted by mind attacks three times in my time in Desia. Once by Aesop, who used his ability to make me think he was his friend. Another time in the Shimmering Labyrinth, when the golden statue attempted to draw me into a trap. The other time was by Mage Ona, who was thankfully too far away to entrap me with her mind magic. This was definitely a very appealing choice.

The second spell form, influence mind, was an attack, not a defense. It suggested a minimum affinity of 20 to learn it, and it was imposing. The spell form could only affect one person within twenty feet, and you needed to overcome their defenses. Once you did so, you could make them see whatever you wanted them to see.

You could create a nightmarish figure chasing them, or make them unable to see you, effectively making you invisible to that one person. You could also make them hear things that were not there. This sounded like an excellent spell for driving someone insane. Once you connected to a person, that link would even remain if they moved out of range, but the further they got from the caster, the more aether it took to maintain the link.

The next spell form was telepathy, which had a required affinity of 25. Telepathy worked very similarly to influence mind. You established a connection with a person within twenty feet that could be maintained. The two people could then communicate through the link. The further the person moved out of range, the more aether it required to keep it established. One interesting side effect of telepathy was if you used it for long periods on the same person, you could eventually know where that person was with a thought. The spell form would instinctively try to seek out that person, pulling the castor in that direction. It reminded me of the blood compass.

Even though I only had a 23 affinity, I continued to the major spell forms. The first required a 25 affinity to learn and was called beholden. This spell captivated the mind of your target, making them think you were their friend. It needed to be sustained, and the further the person got from you, the more aether it would take to maintain the influence. Also, if you did anything to harm the person you had beholden to you, the spell form would break, causing light backlash.

Sleep was an intriguing spell that affected a twenty-foot cloud. The spell caused all targets, including creatures, to succumb to a light slumber. Any injury would awaken the person, and a common defense against this spell, once you realized it had been cast on you, was to try to fall on your head as you drifted off. It required a 25 affinity to cast, but the higher your affinity, the more powerful and deeper the sleep the targets experienced. Any spell form that scaled with affinity was a highly desirable option for me.

Compel Truth was a way to force your target to speak the truth. The target could not twist or omit anything. They would reveal the answer completely to any question you asked while under its effects. While someone who was beholden to you would tell you the truth, this spell was intended for individuals capable of resisting the beholden spell. It was the perfect interrogation spell. This spell form required an affinity of 40 to imprint. I quickly searched the description to confirm that mind fortress would be able to help resist compel truth, making mind fortress go to the top of my list.

I moved down to the rare apex spell forms. Seeing what a truly powerful mind mage could imprint would be enlightening. Mass charm was the scariest of all of them. This was the beholden spell on steroids. It affected anyone looking at the castor when activated. Those enthralled would believe whatever the person was saying and follow that person’s orders to the best of their ability as long as it didn’t threaten their lives.

The even scarier explanation was that the spell wore off very slowly over days. This meant that the mage could cast it and then move on to cast it again, quickly creating an army. They could renew the effects over and over again, keeping a populace enslaved. This spell was another reason for me to imprint mind fortress. At least this spell form required an affinity of 70 to imprint, meaning very few mages in the world could successfully inscribe the spell on their aether core.

Mindwipe allowed a mage to remove memories from a person selectively. This spell took a lot of skill as the mage would form a mental bond with a person and be able to sift through a person’s memories and erase what pleased them. So, this spell could read a person’s mind and delete memories. Once something was erased, it was gone forever. A mage could even mind blank a person, destroying all memories and making the person an invalid.

All these charm/mind spells were beyond scary. I knew there had to be mages out in the world that were using these spells. I briefly thought—very briefly—of being a white knight, traveling the world, and freeing those imprisoned by mind magic.

Dreamworld was the final suggested spell form, and its effects were quite familiar. The description reminded me of the dreamscape amulet, but the mage had much more control, and there was no backlash from creating constructs or bringing forth knowledge. The mage could recreate every book they had ever read with just a thought. For me, recreating more than a dozen books in a single session would leave me incapacitated with a splitting headache afterward.

There was an appeal to dreamworld in that the mage could utilize every hour of every day. Also, just like the dreamscape amulet, the mage would recover like he was actually asleep.

I shuddered as I finished the descriptions. Losing your will to decide your own fate was evil in my mind. My choice came down to either mind fortress or sleep. Having a spell form that could affect a large swath of enemies would be a nice addition to my battle prowess. But in reality, my own fears of being controlled made the decision easier. Aesop was dead, but Mage Ona and others like her lived.

I started that night to review the spell forms for mind fortress. Having done this so many times and with these spell forms being relatively simple, I might even imprint this spell form before the others returned. I hesitated, thinking my aether core might be too fragile to imprint a new spell form. No, the water affinity might be fragile, but charm was one of the affinities I came to Desia with.

When I exited the dreamscape, the sun had set and I started a most critical task. Brewing mouthwash and testing the clarity pendant.

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