Episode Three: The hunt for Terk 's Haksred
Zhorr spent the rest of the day examining the spellcasters whose abilities had been impaired, as well as their ioun stones.
From what he could tell, the new memories were real, not a fabrication. What exactly that meant was anybody's guess, but clearly it involved alternate realities. Always a comfort, that.
The inability to use cantrips and orisons to their full extent appeared to be a drain on their ambient mana pool. The way he discussed it with them - mainly Leonia, given that she was the one most interested in arcane theory - cantrips could be reused because the magic surge following any type of spellcasting caused a local spike in ambient mana - which was barely enough to replenish the energy spent to cast a cantrip. Not all spellcasters had the ability to absorb those spikes, but wizards and sorcerers definitely did; in the case of Aran and Leonia, something was apparently draining that energy from them before they could use it to regenerate their cantrips. Dakash was similarly affected - which was an interesting bit of information that would probably advance magical theory at some point, given that he wasn't an arcane caster, but remained a darn nuisance in the short term.
The ioun stones had been similarly affected, and would have to be repaired. Worse, all ioun stones placed in the care of the three casters, while not permanently affected, still couldn't refresh their powers until the net day or so.
Fortunately, additional experimentation revealed that a wayfinder, a kind of magical compass with the ability to house ioun stones, protected them from the drain.
Zhorr promised the three spellcasters to have a wayfinder made for each of them, though it would take a few days.
He encouraged everybody to talk to the people in Carp, and off-handedly commented that this was a particularly good moment to invest in real estate in Carp, if one felt so inclined.
A couple of days later, Zhorr invited Leonia to his library, and gave her some more information about Magi.
Magi were rather unique arcane spellcasters, in that, onve they reached a certain amount of knowledge, they acquired an ability extremely reminiscent of the unique clerical boon that allowed divine spellcasters to prepare any spell their deity allowed them, without books or foreknowledge.
Specifically, a Magus of sufficient experience could, given a certain amount of effort, prepare a spell that was not alreaty in their book. Having so prepared a spell they had only vaguely heard about, if that, they could then write it into their spellbook, thus acquiring a new spell - for the price of some magical ink and a bit of patience.
He may or may not have sported a cat-got-the-cream expression while explaining that. Leonia, for her part, now understood why he was so liberal in sharing his magical knowledge.
Then he showed his spellbook, specifically the last few pages, which were taken by an entirely new spell. And by "entirely new", he explained, he meant that the spell literally hadn't existed until a few days earlier. Around the time they had lost their ability to use cantrips.
The spell looked like a much weaker version of the famous wish spell; considering that the wish line was probably the most well-researched piece of magic in the world, and the spells that were part of it had remained unchanged for centuries, the idea that a new spell of that line could simply appear from one day seemed rather improbable.
And yet there they were.
Alternate realities and all.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:38, Wed 29 Aug 2018.