Reading texts about magick was a strange feeling. As I went along the lines and read the text, I had an almost instinctive knowledge of if what was said was true, false, or something I didn’t know yet. It felt different from the usual feedback I got from my weird link with Vuthe’s knowledge, although I couldn’t put into words how. Or what else it could come from.
It made it easy to correct potential mistakes as I went along, and also allowed me to think about how that mistake might affect the outcome if I still tried to go through with the methodology. In a way, it was like speedrunning studying magick, similar to how I did just by using it. But also different and a bit more easy to grasp.
And I was rather thankful for it. Because even as the person who thought up the way the magickal system worked in principle, there was a lot of detail that I hadn’t ever thought about, now put into words for me to learn and study.
Finishing up the last paragraph of the current chapter, I nodded to myself. Reading up on the fundamentals of shadowstuff conjuration had indeed been the right call. The texts at hand weren’t quite relevant to the issues I had with my shadow clones, but it still helped me solidify my understanding of common basic methodologies, and, as I had hoped when I began my study session, also gave me glimpses into what other magics might be like to use.
Of course, I couldn’t just translate what was written here to any other form of magic verbatim, but the fundamentals of basic spell casting were pretty similar across the board. While I had already known most there was to know about the fundamentals of actual casting, the magick theory written out in this book did help me in coming up with new approaches to my spells issue. Although, that would still take time.
But back to the shadowstuff conjuration. Even now I could already tell some differences between the described techniques and the way I had learned to conjure them from Vuthe’s knowledge. Some of them could very well be described by the minute errors in assumption the text made, others likely stemmed from Vuthe’s time spent personalising and perfecting the spell, as it were, for her own personal use. And the last part was probably due to the difference in basics and advanced methodologies, which I had yet to read up on.
While I now knew the fundamental logic behind it, I still wasn’t suddenly an expert on shadowstuff conjuration. That would take far more time and training to achieve. But it did at least give me some ideas on how I may be able to adjust the spell in such a way that the shadow clones would be more useful to me with everyday tasks. The goal was to be able to give them some very limited form of consciousness, so that they were more independent. Something I wasn’t actually sure yet if it was possible, but from what I read so far, there was nothing that specifically prevented it either.
Glancing at the time piece, and finding that my allotted time for magick studies was just about to finish anyway, I decided to take a break. Closing the book, I pushed it aside, then stretched this way and that, before I got up to leave the library. I contemplated for a moment to read some more of the holographic books, those that wouldn’t be found in the adult section, but decided against it. The last few had been surprisingly disappointing in their simplicity. Not of the illusion effect, but rather the stories they depicted.
I really wanted to learn how to create those books one day. Being able to bring my imagination to life in such a way was just too exciting a proposition not to pursue, but for the time being it wasn’t relevant to my studies, so I pushed it back. I doubted that it was the sort of thing Vuthe knew how to do in the first place, and even if she did, I wouldn’t mind learning it manually.
Again, provided this strange ability to siphon knowledge was temporary.
With no concrete plans for what to do with the rest of the day, I decided to do some more exploration of the palace. Ever since my trip into the city I had made it a point to go walkabout every once in a while, to take in the sights and clear my mind a little.
Despite the lack of any hurry or stress, I couldn’t help but feel like something urgent was lingering in the back of my mind, although I had no idea what exactly it was. In a way, it was similar to that feeling of knowing you forgot something, but not having any idea what that something was, outside that it was probably important somehow.
So I had taken some time each day to do a short tour. Not for long, not long enough to significantly interrupt my schedule, but also not so short that it left me with no time to relax and recuperate. So far, however, I had only done very limited excursions into the deeper part of the palace. Really, outside of Tizanta’s study, Vuthe’s personal office, and the war room–and the library, obviously–I hadn’t seen anything other than the throne room and the halls leading outside.
Thus, I decided to delve deeper into the building yesterday, a task I continued now as well.
The palace was quite sizable, although not excessively overly complicated. Much of the size came from the fact that it was built to support draconic beings in their true forms for much of the construction. Obviously, those being far larger than humanoid forms, they increased the required height and width of the halls drastically.
Despite this, most of the more private areas, both for Vuthe and her Council, and whatever staff they had on hand, were tailored more towards their humanoid and hybrid forms. To me, that felt like a bit of a contradiction with the newly introduced lore around draconic shapeshifting. A relic of incomplete transition, I supposed. It made sense, all things considered.
I had never described Thelvadore after the change in draconic shapeshifting, therefore the lore itself would also not have been updated properly to take potentially smaller draconic forms, or entirely different body structures, into account. And since this world was mainly based on my work, the discrepancy wasn’t too surprising.
Pushing those thoughts aside, I returned my attention back to the personal dwellings of the Council. I had found them on my trip yesterday, as they weren’t too far from the library and the throne room, out of necessity. Located in the north-east wing of the palace, they were surprisingly modest.
Vuthe’s personal bedroom in specific was very minimalist–practically spartanic–to the point that even the desk and the drawer held basically nothing. Not even festive garments or small notebooks. The bed itself looked marvellous, a king size affair crafted from some form of magical wood. It looked as if it had never been used even once.
On the one hand, that wasn’t too surprising. Dragons didn’t need much sleep, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the few nights Vuthe did spend sleeping she would’ve spent it together with her girlfriend in Tizanta’s room. On the other hand, however, I would’ve expected at least a modicum of a personal touch. Finding the drawer and her desk devoid of basically everything was… strange.
And it reminded me of the utter lack of personal items found outside the palace within the rest of the city. A mystery I still hadn’t made any progress in uncovering.
Stranger still was the fact that the other personal rooms were quite different. Each of the rooms belonging to one of the reincarnators, with the exception of Vuthe’s, held a large number of personal items. Some of which were obviously important by the way they were placed and designed.
That sight also clarified something I hadn’t quite thought about before.
When I ventured into Tizanta’s room for the first time, I found it to be a rather cozy place. Even now, after some time of abandonment, there were obvious signs of it being lived in, even if the dust had made itself comfortable. Her bed wasn’t perfectly made, as if she had only just gotten up, her desk was littered in various notes and books, her drawer not quite properly kept. What caught my attention, however, was what I found displayed on the opposite side of the room, between tall wardrobes and cabinets holding various items.
Carefully placed in elaborate glass display cases were various trinkets from all around the world. Importantly, items I could recognise, despite never having written them into any version of Thelvadore, or the predecessor stories that eventually became part of the overall timeline.
It served to underline that some things were taken directly from my imagination, without needing to write it down. A rather interesting detail, and one I wasn’t quite sure if I should be happy or afraid about.
Happy, because it meant that I might run into a few ideas I hadn’t actually added yet. Afraid, because it meant that whatever mechanism had been employed to build this had obviously gotten a far deeper insight into some of my ideas. Not all of which I was proud or happy with.
There was a reason so many things had been discarded over the years. First and foremost basically everything that had found its origin during my teenage years. As a self-proclaimed edgelord there were quite a few ideas I had come up with over the years that were cringeworthy at best, and absolutely mortifying at worst. And that wasn’t even taking into account the phase I had gone through during which I had been obsessed with various forms of hentai.
Definitely not my proudest moment and something I would stomp out with prejudice if I could. And now some of that might have ended up here.
The thought alone sent cold shivers down my spine.
I did my best not to think about that possibility. Although that wasn’t necessarily easy.
Another question that arose was in regards to the dichotomy I had noticed between the palace design and the updated draconic shapeshifting lore. If Abyss, or whatever she had done to make this world a reality, had rooted around in the deeper parts of my imagination, then why hadn’t she, or the spell or whatever, adapted the changes properly?
The only theory that I could come up with was the fact that perhaps the original intent of Thelvadore, even through my lackluster descriptions, had overpowered the new changes that had barely been introduced. Of course, I had absolutely no evidence for this, and was working entirely on my understanding of magick, which I couldn’t even be sure was the same magick that had formed this world in the first place. But it was the best I could come up with, something that wasn’t likely to change until Abyss daned to fill me in on the details.
Not that it was really important either. It wasn’t like I could change anything.
I spent quite some time in Tizanta’s room, going through the notes on her desk, and admiring the myriad of personal things she had collected. For most of which I had at least some idea about what they were and where they originated from. Eventually, I found my way to her balcony. It was a small thing–at least compared to the rest of the palace–just barely big enough to hold maybe seven people, with a small table and an outdoor sofa, plus two additional chairs. Inside her room, right next to the balcony door was a drinks cabinet. This one was obviously magical, and very well stocked. Not that that surprised me.
Tizanta wasn’t an alcoholic. Far from it. But she did like to play the well-mannered and mysterious hostess. And so she had made sure to always have whatever refreshments she needed on hand, to entertain guests from all around the world. That also included refreshments fit for draconics, since most alcoholic drinks barely affected them at all.
To see that dedication extended to her personal suite wasn’t much of a surprise to me.
Having finished my exploration of her room, I decided to take a small break on the balcony. The furniture had obviously suffered from a lack of cleaning and maintenance over the years, but it was still usable. After perusing her drinks cabinet I decided to treat myself to a drink I had introduced quite early into the story. I didn’t know much about my previous life–or anything at all, really–but seeing this cabinet gave me the feeling that I probably used to drink quite a lot. Or, at the very least, had tried quite a few drinks.
It was this sort of half-remembered dream like memory, one without any substance or describable content. Just a sort of feeling. The best I could hope for at the moment in regards to my memory.
This feeling, though, only furthered my curiosity as to the taste of the elven wine I had just picked out. It was a fresh bottle, unopened, and from the feeling of the cabinet itself, magically put into stasis. To many wine connoisseurs that was probably some form of blasphemy, but I trusted Tiztanta that she had her reasons for doing so.
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